Adda Leah asked Eric Fritzius:

Will you choose a short story to turn into a play? I once started an oral history theater in McDowell County. I wrote the skits and also did some acting. I think it is the one thing I have done in my life that gave me the most freedom. I usually live inside my box, but performing opens a window and for a few fleeting moments I soar.

Eric Fritzius I have actually done this on three occasions. My short story about the Mothman, "...to a Flame," from in A Consternation of Monsters, was the first one I adapted, back in 2005 or so. It didn't see the stage until 2009, though, and has since been produced twice. I also adapted a story of mine called "Playing Cards by Twilight's Shine" (not in the collection), though this has only received a staged reading. More recently I adapted my story "Flying Lessons Over Lunch, with Saint Joseph Cooper Tina," from the Diner Stories anthology, into a short play, but it too has only had a staged reading, as of yet.

I have tended in my writing to tell stories with a lot of dialogue at times. This may be because I cut my teeth writing for the stage. Once in a while, though, I can look at a prose piece and recognize that it not only tells the story with dialogue but has a common setting and limited characters. Those are elements that work well on the stage.

I am experimenting with adapting some of my short plays into short stories as well, since a few of them share a basic setting of West Virginia, as well as being set in the same "universe" as it were. They will likely appear in a future collection.

While I do a lot of performing, I have rarely appeared in my own work. When "...to a Flame" was produced, I did cameo as a voiceover in it, portraying my radio pal Rik Winston, who is only reference in the short story, but who has a bigger role in the play. I prefer, though, seeing what interpretations other people have for the plays and their characters. That, to me, is one of the magical parts of theatre--when a director, actors, and technical crew come together with a script to make something that is, hopefully, a better version of the story being told than is necessarily even on the page.

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