Q&A: Chris Wallace, Author of The Dreaming Team #Q&A #Interview #TheDreamingTeam

Chris Wallace is a creative resource.   As an actor, he was a regular on the hit daytime drama, All My Children, created the role of The Half-Percenter in Joe Papp’s production, Mondongo, appeared in countless television programs, including The Incredible Hulk, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour and had a starring role in the holiday horror classic film, New Year’s Evil.   As a producer, he put on New York: A Great Place to Live at Lincoln Center which kicked off New York City’s Diamond Jubilee; for Channel Five in New York, he produced the highly acclaimed Harlem Cultural Festival; at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, he produced Uptown Sunday Afternoon, which was hosted by Harry Belafonte and featured Richard Pryor, Bill Withers, and a galaxy of other performers; for the National Organization for Women, he produced A Valentine’s Day Tribute to Woman at New York’s Town Hall;  was associate producer of the first Ali-Frazier Heavyweight Championship Fight at Madison Square Garden, and produced the gigantic block party, hosted by Gwen Verdon, which named West 46th Street as Restaurant Row. . He earned the Silver Award at the New York International Film and Television Festival for In the Balance, a film that advocated sustainability and common sense in wildlife management.  It was also singled out by the Department of the Interior as one of the best films of its kind.  Chris wrote, narrated and wrote the musical score for that film. He performed on several children’s television programs in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Jacksonville, singing his original children’s songs.  In Hollywood, he performed them for all denominations of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America.  He created a musical, A Special Thing to Be, at the Los Angeles Children’s Museum that featured his kids’ songs and the museum’s children’s chorus. He wrote the songs for two children’s theatre productions in Hollywood, Hooray, Here Comes the Circus and Sleeping Beauty; wrote and performed the songs on Strong Kids, Safe Kids, a video produced by Henry Winkler for Paramount that dealt with the protection of children from sexual molestation and exploitation.  He created his first musical revue, Greatest Hits, in Hollywood, which played several venues, including Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s on Sunset Strip and The Backlot in West Hollywood. Upon relocating to Australia, he produced A Helping Hand at the Victorian Arts Centre, a benefit for Quadriplegic Hand Foundation; wrote book, music and lyrics for Nothing to Wear, a musical based on “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” also produced at the Victorian Arts Centre.  He created a one-man show, A Thing of Shreds & Patches, for the Melbourne Fringe Festival; created another one-man show, The Mark Twain You Don’t Know, which toured Australia, then Pacific Palisades, California, and played in New York City on the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death.  He created several cabaret shows for The Butterfly Club in Melbourne, most notable of which was Les Femmes which featured an all female cast.  He wrote, produced and performed in Huckleberry: A Musical Adventure which premiered in Melbourne. Which brings us to The Dreaming Team.  This is his second book.  The first, Hollywood Mosaic is written under the pen name, Pete Joseph. You can visit his website at www.olentangymusic.com.  

 

Why did you decide to write The Dreaming Team?Did the inspiration come at a particular moment, or had you been planning to write the book for a while?   

 I never planned to write this book. I knew about the story for several years and thought it was too important to ignore.  No one else was willing or able to bring it to the public, so I did.  It’s that simple.

Did you have to do any research before writing this book or was it more a self-guided knowledge on the subject?   

 I had been involved as a creative consultant for what was hoped to be a miniseries on this subject that never got produced, so I had access to a lot of historical material.  Once I decided to write it, I went further into newspapers and other documents from that period.

What are some of the positive results or responses you have received since publishing your book?  

So far, the most gratifying results have been that both people who know about and follow cricket, and those who don’t, still found this a story that made them want to keep turning pages.  I’m not a die hard cricket fan myself, so I wrote it for people like me.  The fact that it’s a true story about Indigenous Australians makes it timely, just as Killers of the Flower Moon is for Native Americans.  We have a lot to learn from people who have had such respect for and such an honest relationship with the land over millennia, despite how they’ve been treated by society.

List three interesting facts about yourself.   

One thing I find interesting about my life is that when I was a kid in Delaware, Ohio, the last thing I ever thought I’d do was live anywhere else.  And here I find myself living in Australia.  Another thing is maybe that I’ve never thought I couldn’t do something I’ve wanted to do, creatively.  I just seem to barrel ahead.  And one more thing could be my general philosophy of life, which is two-pronged: 1) Always say “yes” and it will land you someplace interesting, and 2) Timing is always perfect.

How can our readers reach out to you? 

 I don’t do social media, but I wrote another book a few years back, titled Hollywood Mosaic, under the pen name, Pete Joseph.  I created an email address for that which I now use for all my writings.  It’s petejoseph34@gmail.com

Title: The Dreaming Team
Author: Chris Wallace
Publisher: Round Lake Publishing
Pages: 368
Genre: Historical Fiction

In the 1850s, Australia was a thriving colony of the British Empire, with its own sense of importance and sophistication.  But the people who had occupied this vast land for upwards of 40,000 years didn’t fit well with colonial expectations of the future.  In every way imaginable, white Australia tried to keep its “darkies” in line.It is against this backdrop in the 1860s that the amazing story of an all Aboriginal cricket team, the first Aussie team to do so, played at Lords, the home of cricket in England.  Conventional wisdom predicted that Indigenous Australians would die off by the next generation.The Dreaming Team brings those Indigenous players to life and follows them on an adventure that would appear to be unbelievable if it weren’t true.  They not only changed the minds and perceptions about Aboriginal Australians, they arguably changed the course of Australian history. Praise for The Dreaming Team:“A beautiful story, beautifully written, about a piece of Australian history that, if you don’t know about, you probably should. Heartwarming, heartbreaking and brimming with relevance for today’s Australia. A poignant example of how far we’ve come and how far we haven’t.” “The Dreaming Team tells the true story of the all Aboriginal cricket team from Victoria who did a tour of Great Britain back in the 1860s and all the drama, setbacks, and cultural divide between the Aboriginals and white Australians involved. Considering the state of affairs for Aboriginal people in those days, the team’s accomplishments are no small feat!” “What an interesting story. It is truly an Australian story about indigenous Australians. The story grabbed me from the first chapter, and drew me further in to where I could not put it down. I don’t want to give anything away, so I will say that the twists and turns makes you want to know what happens next at the end of each chapter. To say it is a sports story is not fair, it is a people story, told from the heart, about the hearts of people who love the land, and their story. I recommend it highly, and look forward to more from the author, Chris Wallace!”

You can purchase your copy at Amazon