OFFSIDES, a new play

Jul 22, 2021 | 2010 Spring - The (First) Youth Issue

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

Related Articles