Fun Five: Allen Zadoff

Nov 20, 2011 by shanyn

Fun Five
Allen Zadoff

Author of
My Life, The Theater, and Other Tragedies (YA)
Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have (YA)
Hungry (Memoir)

1. What is your favorite grocery aisle?
I’ve got to give props to the fruit section at Trader Joes. It keeps me sane and feeling good about myself.

2. Tell us about the last concert you went to.
I haven’t been to a concert in a while, but I just saw an experimental musical by an Austin-based theater troupe called the Rude Mechanicals. It was like a country western show meets Lady Gaga. Very cool. As you probably guessed from my last novel, I love the theater.

3. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
Worry.

4. How many movies do you watch per month?
If you count movies on cable, I probably watch ten or more a month. I’m trying to go out to the movies more often. One of my favorite things: sneak out of work early on a Friday afternoon and see whatever film is premiering that weekend.

5. Describe your ideal birthday party.
Me, a cake, and a lot of privacy. Okay, that’s the bad me talking. (You might know I wrote a memoir called HUNGRY.) The good me enjoyed my birthday last year. It took place at a beautiful hotel bar on the beach in Santa Monica, and I was surrounded by people I love and enjoy. If you’re going to get older in Los Angeles, that’s an excellent way to do it.

About My Life, The Theater, and Other Tragedies:
High school sophomore Adam Zeigler, who lost his father to a sudden accident two years ago, thinks the best way to live life is behind the spotlight. As a member of the theater crew, he believes he’s achieved it all when he wins the coveted job of spotlight operator. But that was before a young actress, Summer, appeared in his view. Instantly smitten, Adam is determined to win her over. But to do so, he’ll have to defy his best friend and break the golden rule of his school: techies and actors don’t mix.

Set against the backdrop of a high school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Zadoff’s latest is a bromance, a love story, and theater story in one. The politics of love and high school collide as Adam struggles to find the courage to step out of the shadows and into the light.

Allen Zadoff’s Website
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From AllenZadoff.com:
Allen went on to live in Manhattan, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. His first love was the theater, and he was an actor in high school and Artistic Director of the undergraduate theater company at Cornell University. He went to graduate school in stage directing at the Harvard University Institute for Advanced Theater Training. These experiences, along with crushes on several actresses, inspired his book My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies.

He was also a fat kid. Some people are shy about the word fat, but he is not. The experience of being big in the world inspired two of his books, the young adult novel Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have which won the 2010 Sid Fleischman Humor Award and his memoir for adults, Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin.