Wow, Cody, you're doing better than a lot of theater companies run by grown-ups! Especially doing your own original plays -- that's pretty impressive. As for ideas, well, it's really hard to say where those come from. If you haven't already, you might look at adapting a classic, well-known story and updating it for modern times -- you feel ready to handle Shakespeare yet? I write lyrics for our fundraiser every year, and sometimes it's hard to come up with something new; I find that a lot of my best ideas just come to me out of the blue when I'm not really thinking about them. Sometimes som pretty funny stuff can come out of putting odd things together with a "what if?" Like "What if people had tails, and actors had to go to tail class to work on using them expressively?" or "What if I work up and suddenly found myself back in 1865?" Those aren't necessarily brilliant ideas, but that kind of thinking can help you let your imagination go, and that's where creativity comes from. Good luck!

The Shakespeare idea is a great suggestion -- how about the Pyramus and Thisbe scene from A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM? Another idea might be to drmatize some of the poems of A.A. Milne, or any other favorite poet.

The play HOW TO EAT LIKE A CHILD is a winner and it's the right length for you. It has an all kids cast with flexible numbers, but there would be royalty and music issues that might be more than you could deal with.

Good luck!

My theater group is just about to start a run of Pollyanna. Since the book is in the public domain, and therefore we didn't have to worry about copyright problems, we did our own script. We closely followed the book, unlike the Disney movie (did you know Pollyanna didn't fall from a tree, but was hit by a car?).

Do you homeschool, by any chance? You sound like a person who has the time, freedom and self-direction to follow her own interests. I'd love to see a production.

Susan