The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-11-17
ByOadsC0ys Latest Success Story NezO Drama Was Written From Wheel-chair By '.An
 Author WhO Can t WnIk ''
BY JUnIA RLANsHARD


 Black, dramatist of Christopher Moriey's Thunder on the Left' which just opened on Broadway. is a strong minded young woman who insists that folks designate her as ''an author who can't walk" rather than "a cripple who writes"
 She has been confined to her chair from the age of II months, when she was afflicted with infan- tile paralysis, but Handicapped" is one word that simply does not apply to Miss Black.
 Perhaps you can't "sing." she strikes right at the heart of things when she feels some newcomer might have misconception. Well, I can't walk and that is all there is to 1t. I can do practically anything else"
 And she certainly can. She earns her own living by writing, she travels everywhere alone with her folding wheel chair. shops for her own clothes. sings beautifully and plays her own accompaniments on the ukeleic. During rehearsals this past month she has stayed alone in hotel near Broadway.
 Her independence, which she prizes above all else. was won dur ing her teens. Through childhood the whole family of father, mother three older sisters and q brother "babied'' her. But she always resented 1t. So one weekend, when everybody but the maid was gone. Jean called taxicab, asked the man to lift her and her folding wheel chair into it and to take her to a Long Island train. once In town. the conductor called porter for her. She spent the day shopping. went to movie and home that night thrilled. quivcr- ing with excitement, because she had proved conclusiyely to hrrhclf and her family that never again need she depend on anyone to take her pli:ccs.
 Inspired by Jann CowI
 Opening night at "Thundcr On the Left" sitting in a box ali dressed up in red velvet cnsem- ble that she had shopped for d whole week, Jean just purred with happiness. Having d play on Eroadway is really her lifc's an- bition fulfilled.
 ''i had always written childreu's stories and poetry" she said. But since Christmas week, 1913. when l saw Jane Cowl in "Smilii Through, ] have been obscssed with burning desire to write plays
 She was just IS then. and not knowing the first thing about plays spirited Jean started right in 10 learn. For one whole year she was oblivious to everything else. She read plays and more plays, all kinds. all periods. Armed with books on dramatic technique and stagecraft, she analysed vari- ous dramas, reconstructed them according to the technique she was mastering in solitary fashion. through her own application. She learned that dramatizing someone clse's stories required quite diff ierent talent from the writing of ones own plays. She dramatizcd two plays laid in France. without ever having been there, which some critics have thought were actual translations from the French. She dramatized Harvey Fersuson's Hot Saturday" laid in Mexico. which book was later sold to the movies. But 1t in Thunder
  put her heart and soul.
 Finished in Three Weeks
 ''I read Morley's book when it ran serially," she said. The min ute. saw it I wanted to'dramatize it. I wrote Morley, but he, quite \. sely, answered that he must know the dramatist because he did not want it done unless it were by romcone he knew would do it care fully and perfectly. So l just gave it up.
 .'Well. not quite. For every time I saw that book on the shelf I'd have little secret pang, or urge. If anyone mentioned it, I'd say. You know, I always thought saw play in that book
 Finally, one day I just got an- moved at myself. was alone so just said to myself. Jean Black. are you going to be the kind of person who goes through life sav- you'd always thought you could do this or that? Why not get 1t out of your system?', The very next day I started in. I wrote it in three weeks."
 Two actors whom she knew read it. Both were delighted and one finally took it to Morley. He liked 1t, too.
 Ambition to Travel
 Between that time and today, when Thunder On the Left" ap- pears on Broadway, option rights to the play have been sold four times and it has been produced three times out of town. Its present production on Broadway suits Jean to the ground.
 What am I going to do if it goes over big?" she repeated the question. "Of course. I know. I'm going to take my young niece and go jaunting all over Europe. I've never been. nor has she. I'd like to get car and drive to little out of-the-way places. I'd like to visit cities where good plays are being given. Then I'd like to come home and dramatize something else."