Fairy Tale Reality
January 27, 2011
Dear Ms. Prince,
We’ve actually received more Cinderella stories than anything else (it is truly inspiring to learn how many people feel their lives have taken a miraculous turn!)—but like that poor prince in the legend, we are finding a lot of poor fits. We are especially interested in hearing your story, however, since your recommendation from Professor March was so compelling. You were very modest in your letter, mentioning nothing about drag queens or big feet or self-esteem—but we know from her that there is more to your story than just “rags to riches!”
You sound like a fun person to work with, Ashley, and we would definitely like to offer you that other shoe; we’re actually quite grateful to you for offering your memoirs. If you have the time and energy, or if you feel ready to fully disclose the warts-and-all intricacies of your personal fairytale life, we are, we confess, simply dying to hear your story, and we hope our project is a good fit for you!
There are several ways we could go about this, and it depends on what kind of storyteller you are. First, if you feel comfortable, we could just ask you to write as much as you can (starting from the beginning) in as much detail as you can, and as quickly as you can, keeping in mind the arc of the story and the important elements of the myth, and we’ll just pop in here and there for clarification. We could also start a questionnaire; we could also interview you. Do you have an idea for how you might like to proceed? Keep in mind we want as much psychological detail as possible, since our musical must be an emotionally satisfying experience for an audience that thinks they know what’s going to happen next, which is how we all feel about fairytales.
Please let us know your thoughts.
Best,
Kristen Caven and Michael O’Dell
www.fairytalereality.com
