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Children’s play highlights Great Lakes maritime history

Jeff Duncan wrote short stories for years and they never went anywhere. Until one day, his friend at the Iowa Review told him the dialogue always was great in his stories. That’s when it hit him – he should write plays.

Twenty years later, Duncan just finished his 23^rdplay. This one is for the Wild Swan Theater in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the plays are for children, he said.

Shipwrecked! is a play about a family caught in a storm while transporting Christmas trees in 1893, he said.

“They’re a family that owns a boat and does Great Lakes shipping,” he said. “November is a good month to have a wreck and in 1893 there was a bad recession so that’s why they were doing it.”  more...