Originally performed in March, 1993 as part of "The Play Ground," Boston University theatre Students' annual playwriting festival, "Toy Planet" was a one-man, one-act performance piece in which Dan Trujillo played himself, his brother, and various older characters, including his parents and a doctor. Taken with the piece and believing it would make an excellent two-character play, I described it to Susan Neal. She read Dan's script and agreed. We both urged him to expand and re-shape it. His new script was read here at Pendragon [Theatre] in February and subsequently refined into the current version.
"Toy Planet" is rich in humor, emotion and substance. Perhaps because it is a new play people ask me what "Toy Planet" is "about." Its story concerns primarily the growing up of two brothers, one sighted and one nearly blind, but it is "about" many things: the complicated relationships of siblings, the difficulty — perhaps even the futility — of judging behavior that stems from such complexities, the values and dangers of extraordinary imagination, the possibilities and pitfalls of institutional intervention, the strengths and limitations of two parents, the loss of innocence, the interactive ways we construe our history and our selves, the myths our culture offers as models to youth, and the difficulties of growing up at all in late twentieth-century America. The play touches these and other issues. Finally, I believe, "Toy Planet" celebrates the heroism of Tom, Dan, and young people like them who, in the face of daunting challenges, struggle toward maturity,