About the Author

DOUGLAS M. PARKER is an award-winning playwright and lyricist. His works include the musical, Life on the Mississippi (book and lyrics), based on Mark Twain's classic autobiographical coming-of-age tale; BESSIE: The Life and Music of Bessie Smith, based on the rise and fall of the great American blues singer; Thicker Than Water, a drama based on the Andrea Yates tragedy; Declarations, a Young Audience historical drama drawn from the letters of John and Abigail Adams from their earliest courtship through the summer of 1776; and The Private History of a Campaign That Failed, a Young Audience comedy based on Mark Twain's true, humorous memoire of his time as a lieutenant in the Confederacy's least accomplished, most forgotten regiment.