Author & Illustrator

© 2011 Light at 11B

Betsy Franco

• Betsy is an award-winning author/actor of over 80 published books
• Her play Metamorphosis, Junior Year, premiered at the Palo Alto Children's Theatre to sold-out audiences.
• She also has experience acting on stage, on TV (General Hospital), and in film (James Franco's The Broken Tower). 
• She acts in and write sketch comedy as a member of Suburban Squirrels.
• Her actor sons, James Franco and Dave Franco, got her into the world of acting.
• She always have teen consultants, and wrote the monologues on this site with the help of students involved with the Palo Alto Teen Arts Council.*
• See www.betsyfranco.com for more information.

© 2011 Light at 11B

* Thank you to the students involved with the Teen Arts Council at the Palo Alto Children's Theatre for their dedication in helping me create this book: Leah Victoria Bleich, Carolyn Burt, Cara Friedman, Jacqueline Friduss, Jonathan Friduss, Carly King, Liana Krakirian, Rebecca Krieger, Sivan Spector, and Ivy Sanders Schneider.  A special thanks to Regina Victoria Fields, my intern, for her invaluable help throughout.

Tom Franco

© 2011 Light at 11B

• Tom Franco painted the cover of 21 Monologues for Teen Actors.  

• He is the director of the Firehouse Art Collective - a California based group creating spaces for artists of all disciplines to co-create community and culture - firehouseartcollective.blogspot.com.  

• Tom is a mixed media sculptor and painter collaborating heavily with select artists of all ages in the greater Bay Area.  

•  He is the co-founder of 23Monkeytree productions which is the food branch of the art collective producing artisan kombucha beverages.

• He illustrated the novel, Metamorphosis, Junior Year, in collaboration with his mom Betsy Franco.  Those illustrations, which were animated and projected on the set of the play of Metamorphosis, were a major element of the production.

photo by Julia Lazar