I received an exciting letter yesterday. It asked me how I knew I wanted to be a writer. It was when I was in high school. At that time, I was attending high school in Bloomington, Minnesota. The school was putting on the play Tea House of the August Moon. It is a 1953 play by John Patrick after a novel by Bernard Sneider. There was a movie version of it. Marlon Brando played the lead. The plotline of the play is about the United States occupation of Okinawa just after World War II, and the US attempt to teach the Okinawans all about the United States. I played a villager with a short speech and was the backup to the main character.
I have found as I studied the lines for the two characters that I didn’t particularly like the dialogue. I thought there could be some small changes to make it more effective. Of course, the director didn’t agree with me. I realized that I could never be an actor because I would always want to change my part in various ways. I realized I would do much better as a writer than as an actor. That’s the whole story of my realization that I wanted to be a writer.
