John and Sarah Haman are sharing their first co-playwriting experience with this presentation of "The Breakout room and Other Tales." Sarah is a first-time author but a long-time stage performer and four-year drama teacher at Lakeside High School. She is married to John, a published and produced playwright, writer of fiction and candidate for the MFA degree in Creative Writing at Sewanee School of Letters. John has written two other plays that have been staged at Lakeside: "Angus Magoosh and the Elmdale Uprising" and "Edgar: A Ghost Story," which was recently published by Stage Partners after LHS employed it to advance from the Arkansas Thespian one-act competition to a showcase production at International Thespian Festival.
The Hamans developed "The Breakout Room" late this summer as a flexible vignette play, and will soon enter a shorter version of it into the state Thespian festival. They hope to earn a second production for the play soon, and are offering it for publication.
Mr. Haman has another play in production right now as Bastrop High School in Bastrop, Texas, presents his innovative, mind-bending epic "I Am Frankenstein" in theater-in-the-round in their black-box performing space. The reimagined story includes Mary Shelley, the novel's author, as a character, along with a large chorus of movers/actors/vocalists called "The Blackbirds." It has drawn interest from professional theaters, and can be produced both in huge scale and in intimate theaters. Another production of the play is tentatively scheduled for an out-of-state high school in spring.
Mrs. Haman graduated from Ole Miss University with a BFA in Musical Theater Performance, and has extensive theatrical acting experience. She has also spent many years performing as Patsy Cline including performances for the Hot Springs community. Mr. Haman graduated from Hendrix College with a B.A. in Theater Arts, with distinction, and has an extensive background in acting, directing and playwriting. He spent 17 years in newspaper reporting and public relations before moving into his current career as a wealth management advisor, which he continues full-time while writing plays and works of fiction. He also teaches writing workshops for students, and works as a playwright mentor for Thespian organizations. He began the MFA program at Sewanee last summer by focusing on writing fiction and studying the works of Tenessee Williams.
The Hamans' son, Parker, attends third grade as a hybrid student at Lakeside Intermediate, while Mr. Haman's daughters, Rachel and Lindsey, attend Central High School in Little Rock.
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