Meet the Character: Tanya Hayes

tyunglebower ♦ April 13, 2015 ♦ 1 Comment

The latest character I’d like you to meet from my upcoming novel, Flowers of Dionysus Tanya Hayes.

Tanya is a talented dancer in her early 20’s. So talented in fact that she might have made a go at dancing professionally, had she not found such satisfaction giving private dance lessons instead. Her patience and calm demeanor may in fact help her land a teaching job at a prestigious dancing school, thanks to her parents’s connections.

But for now Tanya is content with her private lessons and with choreographing and sometimes appearing in local community shows that have a dancing element. That’s how she found herself in the somewhat disjointed summer production at the Little Dionysus Playhouse this year. Though the show is not a musical, there are dance elements involved, over which Tanya has been given free reign to design as well as perform in. (Along with a small collection of teen dancers who remain fiercely loyal to her.)

Tanya is quite disarming, and more than one normally private person finds her easy to open up to, for some reason.

When not dancing or preparing to dance, Tanya enjoys meditation, playing her football video game, and friendly bickering with her younger brother, Kurt. (The lighting guy for the summer show.)

Yet even the normally confident and patient Tanya feels somewhat at a loss when she begins to receive phone calls from an odd man and potential client. Who is he? What does he really want, and why does he sound vaguely familiar over the phone?

Find out more about Tanya and her phone calls in my upcoming community theater novel, Flowers of Dionysus, coming out in June.