Has anyone here been bitten by the acting bug? Maybe you sang in a high school musical or auditioned for a television commercial. Have you sung in a choir? How about Karaoke? Have you ever taken the microphone?
I’ll confess to one group Karaoke adventure. There were six of us, all women. We did a truly awful version of “Lollipop” at a community potluck. Thankfully this was before YouTube. Other than that one experience I’ve only been on the audience side of the entertainment world, yet somehow I’ve ended up with an actress as the heroine in my current manuscript. She’s given up her career to raise her two younger siblings, but she still has a heart for the stage.
What would her life have been like? 
Interesting, to say the least! The traveling theater troupes in the Old West offered a variety of acts with a varying degrees of sophistication. Shakespeare recitations were popular, and so were trained monkey acts, jugglers and acrobats. Singers performed everything from Italian opera to popular songs like “Home Sweet Home.”
There was something for everyone in a theater show, and the audiences were diverse. Reserved sections had cushioned chairs and catered to people with money. The cheap upper balcony seats were available to folks with lesser means. The key here is that theaters brought large numbers of people together for the sake of being entertained.
This was a definite shift in how Americans enjoyed music, songs and storytelling. Instead of enjoying these pursuits in their homes with family and friends, people became part of a crowd. We’ve all heard it . . . the thunderous applause, the collective gasp at a moment of drama. Going to a theater performance, then or now, is very different from listening to Cousin Lizzie pound out “Beautiful Dreamer” on an out-of-tune piano. Folks would be–and still are–entranced by a certain actor or singer and a star would be born.
Among the most well known actresses in the west was Lotta Crabtree. Born in New York City in 1847, Lotta traveled west to Grass Valley, California with her parents as a child. She started performing at the age of six and gained the attention of famous actress Lola Montez. Lotta was in the right place at the right time. The California Gold Rush brought countless miners to the gold fields, and they were hungry for entertainment. A singer, dancer and banjo player known for her Irish tunes, she become known as “Miss Lotta, the San Francisco Favorite.”
Just for fun, I want to mix in a little Hollywood. Do you remember Josie Marcus? She wasn’t well known for her stage roles, but she earned fame in Tombstone. She’s the actress who married Wyatt Earp. One of my favorite scenes in the movie Tombstone, (the one with Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp) is when he and Josie go riding. The movie does a nice job of depicting the audiences that took in theater shows as well as the variety of acts that entertained those rowdy crowds.
Life with an acting troupe didn’t include caviar and fancy dressing rooms. 
Expenses had to be covered by ticket sales, which could vary drastically. If sales were low, the owner of the show (often the lead actor) might cancel the show and move the troupe on. For a popular show, extra performances would be added. An opera company (“opera” here means light opera performed in English) would travel with a small orchestra and add local talent where it was available. There was no time for rehearsals, so that first show could be interesting for the audience and the musicians.
What about you? Have you had an interesting experience on a stage? Have you sung karaoke-style or been on television? Maybe you play a musical instrument. I’m in awe of musical and acting talent and would love to hear about your experiences.
One of my earliest memories is sitting on the floor in my bedroom with a children’s book of fairy tales. The book was tall and wide and about a half-inch thick. The cover showed Rapunzel with her hair flowing while a prince in a pointy hat gazed up at her. Red Riding Hood is looking up, and there’s a unicorn in the background. 
And so the research began . . . 
made using etched zinc plates, chromolithographs and photo engravings. They popularized well known illustrators including Thomas Nast and Ida Waugh. 
s fought when British-led Sioux, Sac, Fox and Winnebago warriors attacked a newly built French entrenchment in May of 1780. That historical fact came from a local newspaper article my mother forwarded.
end sent me that news story.
Any writer can tell you that the most frequently asked question they hear is, “Where do you get your ideas?” 
Many of my ideas come from hearing a song, watching a movie, reading a book, or from my research. Something will catch my attention, and I’ll think “what if”? Then I play with the notion until I turn it into a story.
Photos: 
The original idea, that little glimmer of a spark, is most often one thought I write down on one sheet of paper – and then tweak and tweak and tweak. Starting with my first book, here are a few:
— Saint or Sinner sprang from my passion for watching late night westerns. There’s an old black and white flick with Joanne Woodward where this guy comes back from the war and builds a church. She’s just a kid he tries to reform, but I thought…what if this fellow had a life after death experience and came back a changed man…and there was a woman who didn’t believe he’d changed?
— The Doctor’s Wife came from watching a talk show where the female guest told her story. She came from the “trash family” in a little town. I felt so sorry for her and her story was so sad that I sat and cried. Often when I’m moved by someone’s real life story, I want to write one that turns out better. It’s like I can fix the world one book at a time or something. The real person in this case was ridiculed and teased by the other children. Her family was so poor that she wore her brother’s underwear. Her mother gave birth to more than one baby and made the daughter go bury them. One particular time, she secretly gave the baby away. This was one of those reunion shows, and they brought out the sister whose life she saved so many years ago and they were reunited with hugs and tears. Bizarre story, eh? Once again truth is stranger than fiction. Well I changed all that and had the baby be my heroine’s and had her hide it to keep it safe. But that’s where the idea was conceived.
So anyway, ideas come from anywhere and everywhere: TV shows, the newspaper, songs, other books. I’ve never found that warehouse outside Tulsa, dag-nabbit, so I do most of the dirty work on my own. Actually, the ideas are the fun part, the part that never runs out. Carrying out the work is the hard part. There are a lot of people who call themselves writers and who come up with ideas, but there are far fewer who actually do the work and get it all in publishable story form on paper!