Disney, Nickelodeon, and PBS have all run shows – some of them hit shows – created by Fracaswell Hyman. He is a writer, producer, and director of children’s television. He is also an actor who makes his home in Wilmington with his husband, their daughter, and a schnoodle.
Hyman thought he had retired from television production and so began writing the Mango Delight books – a series of middle-grade novels that follow the adventures a young girl who, like every tween, struggles to find the strength to be herself. Hyman’s second book in the series, Summer In The City, follows Mango to New York City – where she stars in her first professional theatrical production.
Hyman knows a lot about the New York theater world; he grew up in Brooklyn and started his professional career as an actor. But it was a planned audition for a major feature film that changed his course. He woke in the wee hours the day of the audition. The character he was to read for, a Pullman Porter, was portrayed as a marginal character – without the depth that had come to life in his own imagination.
So he called his agent, told her he wasn’t going to audition, and she responded with an order to write the material he wants to see on the screen. He did - -and launched his TV career as a writer – working on the shows Ghostwriter, Little Bill, Taina, Gullah Gullah Island.
On this editon, we hear about his second book in the Mango series, find out (a tiny bit about) what he’s doing in L.A. – perhaps he didn’t retire from TV after all? And we finally answer the question that we left hanging at the end of our last interview more than two and a half years ago (and leave another question hanging).