As we’ve alluded to throughout this blog, both Brianna and I are drama educators, alongside our obsession with YA literature. Last week the two of us traveled to Chicago to attend the national conference put on by the American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE). Though not everything we did was kidlit-connected, we did have a couple of standout Slatebreaker moments, starting with this one:

Yes! That is us with Lois Lowry, author of such amazing books as The Giver and Number the Stars and (Slatebreaker All Star) Anastasia Krupnik! Also pictured is Eric Coble, who adapted the Giver & won AATE’s Distinguished Play Award for the adaptation. We talked about how not only is Anastasia an amazing & hilarious hero, but her parents are pretty incredible characters in their own right. It’s a shame they aren’t being published anymore, but I did manage to get a signed copy of this TYA adaptation of the first book

It’s a pretty faithful adaptation, actually. Most of the dialogue is lifted directly from the book, which seemed to work since it’s a dialogue heavy play. I’d love to see it onstage.

We also got to present a really exciting session about finding new ways and resources for using literature in drama, which gave us a terrific opportunity to interact with other people who share our interests in the field. We also got to cater the demos we included in our session to Slatebreaker-friendly material, using our current favorite, Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, and the picture book Patricia Von Pleasantsquirrel by James Proimos. Here’s Brianna, facilitating some drama activities based on a passage from Beauty Queens.

and here are a few choice moments from that session:

Thanks to AATE for a great conference! We look forward to being back next year in Lexington!