Today's tease

From my essay Writing the History Play: Why Dramatists Lie in the Pursuit of Truth, which first appeared in Oregon Magazine:

Facts versus truth: perhaps only a dramatist would
conceive of such a struggle. From my point of view,
the trouble with a "literal" rendering of the Otis
story is that it is inefficient and dramatically
unfocused. Drama is about conflict and focus and
pacing. Playwrights like to order their story events
in ways that build tension and keep focus on the
central dramatic issue of the story. History almost
never plays out with such order, and therefore
dramatists frequently rearrange events and change
emphases in order to tell a more compelling story.
However, as they do this, conscientious dramatists
strive to retain the essence of the emotional truth
that lies at the foundation of the historical events
and period.