Robyn Ochs has commented on the woeful shortage of media that deal respectfully with bisexual characters. Her comment got me thinking about my own script and its writing process.
I am currently adapting OFFSIDES, my fictional screenplay, for the stage. This teen drama includes a bisexual main character. Originally, the screenplay had two main characters, one bicurious and the other lesbian. However, the structure of the stage adaptation improved with the inclusion of a lone main character. Not surprisingly, writing about one bisexual character was easier, since such an individual reflects my own bisexual experience. I also found myself changing the focus of the story in general. Originally, the lesbian character “comes out” to her mother. Instead of a coming out story, the adaptation of OFFSIDES is a universal coming-of-age story about Marissa, a star soccer player from a financially-strapped family who makes an unfortunate decision and has to pay the consequences, learning and growing all the while. Although Marissa is bisexual, I do not draw attention to her process. Her bisexuality is no big deal.
More than anything, my main goal was to create a story with which almost anyone could identify. I wanted OFFSIDES to offer insights on complicated human experience.
A local stage director in New Jersey is slated to produce OFFSIDES sometime in the Fall of 2010. More information will follow.
~Jennifer DiOrio, emerging playwright/screenwriter