I’ve been known as a book author for nearly 20 years, but before that, I crafted stories in a more theatrical style through plays. The writing bug hit me in my teen years, and after acting in some school plays, I decided to write my own stories through theatrical performance, and in 1993, my junior year of high school, one of those plays came to life.

Since then, not so much.

That’s why I got more than a little excited when I got an email the other day from the Elks Theatre, a grand performing arts venue in Prescott, Arizona. The theater regularly sends me announcements of the shows coming up in the historical haven for thespians—yes, I know that’s overly dramatic. However, the latest email advertised a playwriting competition, with the grand prize being the opportunity for the full play to be produced on the Elks stage.

My first thought was “I should enter.” Keep in mind that I haven’t written a play in over 15 years, since I was asked by a theater group in Page, Arizona, to come up with something to perform in the wake of our highly acclaimed performance of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

I came up with Grandma’s House of Waffles, an alternative telling of fairy tales with Red Riding Hood running her grandmother’s restaurant and trying to stop a hostile takeover from the big bad wolf, who I renamed Stradivarius T. Wolf to make him a touch more sinister. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to bring the show to life in Arizona. When I got to Wisconsin, I tried shopping it around the area theaters with zero joy.

So when the email came in about the contest, of course, I saw an opportunity to try and get Grandma’s House of Waffles on a stage at last. My focus is on novels, but I’ve never looked away from stories being told through theater. Besides, the Elks Theatre has more than a century of history, and to have one of my imaginings performed on the stage of such a grand lady would be a real feather in my cap.

I looked at the rules, and at first, they just fueled my desire even more. In particular, I was excited that the winning play would have to have minimal set changes. I knew my play had all the action taking place in the dining area of the waffle house, so check. There was also a requirement that the show come in between 60-120 minutes. While I have no firm time on it, I believed Grandma’s House of Waffles fit the bill.

Then I saw the rules that showed me I probably couldn’t make this dream come true. The first was that the show had to have eight or fewer characters. When I first started counting, I thought I had it made with exactly eight characters. Then came the last scene, where I reimagined Goldie Locks as a television show host, and try as I might, I couldn’t imagine the play working with one of the characters written out.

That didn’t hurt as much as the fact that the playwrights needed to organize excerpts themselves, with actors and everything, and if the play won, it fell on the playwright to produce and direct the show. I’m over 1,400 miles away from Arizona, so that was a definite no, as I can’t take a hiatus from my job and spend months back home to oversee the show.

Also, the rules required the play to be unpublished, and technically I set up the final scripts through Amazon. Oops.

Even though I’m not going to be able to give Grandma’s House of Waffles its due, I’m still very excited about the Elks Theatre playwright contest. For one thing, I know that there are other people who are still hoping to bring their stories to life in a theater. I had that dream growing up, and for one brief period, it came true, so I definitely want it to come true for someone else.

I know this contest will also get the heart of my sweetheart, Todd, pumping. I can remember plenty of times when he, as a former actor himself, rants about what’s coming out on Broadway, especially when popular movies are turned into musicals. He hates that there’s no originality left in the performance spaces, so a contest like this is an opportunity for someone’s undiscovered story to get its moment in a spotlight on the stage.

To close this out, I leave you with a quote from Edward Albee: “A playwright has a responsibility in his society not to aid it, or comfort it, but to comment and criticize it.”

Time to assemble the characters.