tor for the Charter Oak Cultural
Center in downtown Hartford.
His plays range from works created for adult audiences to
those for young audiences like
The Book of D. Situations involving close friendships, families in
trouble, and loss are often part
of his works.
It may seem difficult moving
from the world of adult audiences to young audiences, but he
says he treats both works as the
same process. He finds himself
asking the same kinds of storytelling questions regardless of
the audience, but the writing is
approached a little differently.
“I think with young audiences,
you have to write very purely,”
he explained. “No snark. No excess cleverness. No artifice. No
tricks. Kids can smell a lack of
authenticity a mile away. You
have to write cleanly and simply
and honestly.“
Cody certainly knows the
NewJerseyStage.com
young audience well. He has
taught and created plays in such
places as New Britain Youth Theatre, the Delta Grand Youth Theatre, AUI Summer Theatre, The
Playhouse Tulsa, and Union Public Schools. In addition, he created the PlayBridge Workshop —
a unique play creation workshop
for young people.
This is his first time working
with the Growing Stage. The
Book of D was chosen for production as a result of winning
the company’s annual new play
contest in 2015. He has been
part of the rehearsal process, but
due to distance, he’s involved
peripherally.
“It’s fun for me to see what a
creative team does with a play
of mine, especially when I trust
them,” he said. “I’ve done a few
last minute rewrites based on
stuff the director suggested, and
it’s added some lovely things to
the play. I’m looking forward to
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