An excerpt from The Hunger for Story : Lessons from One Theatre World 2007 to be published in TYA Today in the fall.

The mid-morning sun shone on an oversize bronze sculpture of Marcie, the character from the Peanuts comic strip, sitting on a park bench and reading a book.  While I had noticed the many Peanuts sculptures throughout St. Paul, their significance was not made clear to me until a 2 year old taught me an important lesson. 

He was walking on the sidewalk in front of me.  I had just noticed him when suddenly he changed direction.  Tottering along at a steady clip, he veered right, increased velocity and barreled toward the sculpture.  As he got closer, he slowed, lifted his hands to the top of the book—which was just as flatly bronze as the rest of the figure—and began to lift himself up to peer into the open pages.  It was clear that he wanted to know what story it was that was being told on these pages.  It was clear that he had in him the very thing that brought us all to St. Paul: the hunger for story.