SPFHS Teacher Releases Fourth Book

October 30, 2015. Author Gwyn English Nielsen, teacher of English and communications at Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School and resident of Scotch Plains, recently released her fourth book in print: From Footlights to Flashlights: Ten conceptual plays that reach and teach teens. The anthology is a collection of character-building plays, each focusing on a specific theme related to a challenge that adolescents often experience in today’s society.
From Footlights to Flashlights contains oneact pieces that could be referred to as “morality plays” as each teaches a message, a moral. Themes include good vs. evil, identity, peer pressure, romantic love, inequity, manners, miscommunication, sexism, grief, and tolerance— all relevant given today’s everchanging, moral and ethical climate. Nielsen’s previous works for children, Serendipity and the Dream Catcher and Torey the Turkey Goes Skiing are also didactic in content.
Nielsen started penning the one acts fifteen years ago when she was teaching theater at a local summer camp. Gradually, she began to produce and direct the short plays. Four of the ten she produced and directed while a teacher at Terrill Middle School. Her students performed them at Park Middle, Terrill Middle, and at Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School to rave reviews. After writing six more, she decided to put all ten together in the anthology so that other teachers of drama/English would be able to produce them as school assemblies for no royalty fees. “For me, it’s always about the message and not about the money. As a society, we are moving away from traditional values, turning inward. It’s time to return to existential soul-searching and to what is truly important in life,” suggests Nielsen. She also admits that some of the plays are autobiographical in content. “All authors draw from their own lives. Fortunately, I’ve had a fascinating one so far so that my plays tend to be on the avant-garde side. Scenic elements are sparse and the staging is often unorthodox. Consequently, no one needs a big budget to produce them.”
Recently in mid-October, the book was featured at the Frankfort International Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, which is the world’s largest. From Footlights to Flashlights will also be featured at the AASL’s (American Association of School Librarians) seventeenth national conference and exhibition in Columbus, Ohio, November 5-8.
Locally, Gwyn English Nielsen and a collection of student actors will present scenes from the book at the Mountainside Library (Saturday, March 5 from 2 to 3 p.m.). The book is available for purchase on-line via Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com and as a special order in stores.