Hard to choose! When I was little it was either 'Annie' or 'The Sound of Music,' and in high school I fell deeply in love with all the musicals I performed in: 'Guys and Dolls,' 'Sweeney Todd,' 'Evita,' and 'City of Angels.' I'm also a fan of 'Avenue Q,' 'The Lion King' musical, 'In the Heights,' 'Fiddler on the Roof,' and 'Porgy and Bess.Drama geeks have their day in Raina Telgemeier’s Drama, a winner of the 2013 Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association. I also love the marketing, publicity, and design teams I work with at Scholastic-everyone is great at their jobs, and they take good care of me. I've worked with the same editor for my past four projects, and she's super-smart and always willing to work with me to make my ideas better. You've done a number of books with Scholastic, including 'Smile' and 'Drama.' What has your experience been so far in working with them to publish your books? They still believe they can change the world. I like the purity of emotion that you find in twelve year-olds. Emotions seem so much stronger when you're a young teen every triumph and heartbreak is magnified. I have very clear memories of my middle school and high school years. What is it that you find so compelling and interesting about writing young adult protagonists? Comics don't have a taste or a smell or a sound, but I want the reader to be able to imagine all of those things.

My goal in making comics, if there is one, is always to try and capture what all five senses might, if the reader were in the character's shoes. I wanted Callie's early memories to feel as tactile as my own. The sense of anticipation as the lights went down. Even more than the play itself -, just like Callie! I remember the feeling of sitting in the balcony, the red velvet seats, the sound of the ticket-scanning machines and the expensive candy in the snackbar. I remember going to see my first musical. Where did this scene come from and how did you put it together? How nice it might have been to stay backstage!Ĭallie, the protagonist, has a really great four-page introduction with no dialogue. The inspiration came from many places for me: loving collaborative art projects, doing work on my friends' student films during college and just remembering what it was like to look out at a full house from the wings before a play, full of dread and not wanting to go out there in front of everybody. There have been plenty of books, TV shows and movies about performers - but not everyone wants to be a performer! Theater tech is a wide world of creativity, technical skill and being involved with something larger than yourself. Why did you make the choice to tell this theater production story with a focus on the tech crew and life backstage as opposed to the actors and the supporting cast?

Drama by Raina Telgemeier