Castration Celebration is a zany romantic romp through a summer theater program at Yale, and the follow-up to Jake Wizner's critically acclaimed debut
Spanking Shakespeare. Max, an actor who likes women, has a crush on Olivia, a playwright who hates men. Olivia enjoys Max's attention, but she tells him in no uncertain terms that she came to camp to focus on her work. Olivia chann...
More Castration Celebration is a zany romantic romp through a summer theater program at Yale, and the follow-up to Jake Wizner's critically acclaimed debut
Spanking Shakespeare. Max, an actor who likes women, has a crush on Olivia, a playwright who hates men. Olivia enjoys Max's attention, but she tells him in no uncertain terms that she came to camp to focus on her work. Olivia channels her romantic energy into writing "Castration Celebration," a musical with two teenagers, Amber and Dick, who fall in love after playing Benedick and Beatrice from Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing. Much of the trouble in Olivia's musical is instigated by Dick's macho buddies, Biff and Sluggo, who get the best songs (such as "I Saw My Parents Having Sex" and "Horny"). Olivia has been obsessed with the seemingly inevitable infidelity of men ever since she walked in on her dad cheating with one of his grad students, and she works out her frustrations through her writing. But when Olivia tries to orchestrate a romantic situation in her own life as though it were a play, she learns the limits of her talents. Wizner cleverly embeds the scenes-and songs-of "Castration Celebration" (Olivia's musical) within the chapters, showing Olivia's development as a character as she's writing.
Castration Celebration (the book) doesn't necessarily include any poignant epiphanies, and that's one of its strengths: for the most part, Wizner allows it to be a comedy and remain a comedy. It is a funny, realistic portrait of early adulthood relationships, one that doesn't steer away from topics that teens deal with every day-gender power struggles, sexual tension, and alcohol and drug use. Best for older teens who can relate to adult themes. (Ages 14 and up) --
Heidi Broadhead Jake Wizner on Castration Celebration
I wanted to write a musical, which is a little bit odd because I have only seen two or three musicals in my life and did not particularly enjoy them. But I've always loved writing irreverent songs, and I figured that I could write the kind of musical that people who don't like musicals could also enjoy. I started with the lyrics, and then I built a script around the songs, and what emerged was something outrageous, over-the-top, and really, really funny, at least to me.
I had also been playing around for a long time with the idea of setting a young adult novel on a college campus, because I had spent the first ten years of my life living in a dormitory at Yale. I remembered clearly what kinds of adventures a young boy could have, and I imagined it could be even more fun for kids a little bit older. So that's kind of how the book came together. Take a group of teenagers, plop them down on a college campus for a summer program where they can be working on a musical, and see what happens.
There's a scene early in the book where Olivia's playwriting teacher challenges her students to write not what they know, but what they want to find out. That's sort of what writing this book was like for me. Whereas Spanking Shakespeare was rooted largely in my own experiences as a teenager, Castration Celebration was really a work of pure fiction. Now I'm at work on a third novel for young adults, a humorous coming of age story of a neurotic, love-starved high school senior who finds himself becoming entangled in the life of a young boy and the immigration politics of post 9-11 America. -Jake Wizner
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