Tampa Prep Senior Ollie Kokai-Means ’25 has signed a contract with Vanderbilt University Press to publish two plays that he has co-written: Zombie Thoughts and Ballet for Aliens!
Ollie and his mother were commissioned to write Zombie Thoughts when he was 9 years old and it debuted when he was 11, and has since been produced 10 times at different theaters. He wrote Ballet for Aliens when he was 14 and it toured to audiences of nearly 20,000 people across Utah in 2022-23.
Zombie Thoughts is about being a kid with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and has been produced all over the world (including Riverside: The National Theatre of Paramatta the major theatre in Sydney, Australia)
Ballet for Aliens was co-written with friend Gerard Hernandez about being a boy in ballet and living with Crohn’s Disease. Both of these plays initially toured with Plan-B Theatre in Salt Lake City with the support of National Endowment for the Arts grants and together have been seen by more than 50,000 kids, teachers, and parents. The book will be published next August.
Huge Congratulations to Ollie!
