Monday 19 March 2012

Turning 'Chloe' into a play...


It's an idea that's occurred to me before, but I've never done anything about it - partly because:

  1. I don't know much about writing plays
  2. Ghost stories (or anything with even a hint of paranormal, like 'Chloe') are difficult to put on stage. Not impossible, but challenging...
Then, a few days ago, a young reader called Ella GE, who writes a wonderful blog called Everything + Anything + Life, named Coping with Chloe as one of her seven choices for YA books to be made into films. (Thanks, Ella.) And this got me thinking again...

OK, so in Coping with Chloe we have a 12-year-old girl called Anna who believes that her twin sister Chloe is living inside her head - sharing Anna's body, if you like. Everyone else believes Chloe died in the accident, but Anna is convinced she is still around. Garfie the golden labrador does tricks for Chloe, the way he always used to - he never did them for Anna. Chloe helps Anna with her school work and writes poetry. And Joe the gorgeous new boy - who has he just kissed, Anna or Chloe?

So how do you dramatise that? It's gets even harder as the story goes on. At one stage Anna and Chloe are fighting for ownership of Anna's body. And later, Chloe steps in to help when Anna gets herself into real trouble.

That's the challenge, and it's an interesting one. Putting a golden labrador on stage and getting it to 'act' is going to be impossible, I would think, apart from anything else!

But who knows what can be done? I'm up for the challenge, and I'm looking forward to running a workshop soon, where I will hope to get ideas from a group of young readers and budding actors.

I also need some guidance on how to create a play based on a book.

Suggestions very welcome - please!