One of my favorite celebrities is actress Lacey Chabert. During the second season of 'Party Of Five', which co-starred Lacey, the future of the series was in doubt for a while. During this time I started writing a pilot for a TV series called 'Shooting Star,' specifically designed for Lacey. It was about a girl in her early teens who fulfills her dream of stardom by being cast as the lead in a new Broadway musical (Lacey also sings and dances, btw, and in fact played the role of Young Cosette in 'Les Miserables' on Broadway for 2 1/2 years). After 'Party Of Five' won a Golden Globe award, of course, the ratings improved, and the show was picked up for a third season (and then three more after that). Thus, there was no longer any point in working on the script, since Lacey wasn't going to be in a position to do it.

Just so that a little piece of that abandoned work might see the light of day, here is the poem that Lacey's character would have recited in school at the very beginning of the pilot, a poem about her as-yet unfulfilled dream of being a star:

My dream floats high in the starry night,
out of my reach, but not out of my sight.
It hurts that it's up there, so far away
that all I can do now is wait and pray.
But someday I'll leap up high at last,
grab onto my dream, and hold on fast,
then fly 'cross the sky for all to see,
like a shooting star! Yes, that's what I'll be!
A shooting star, flying high and bright,
and all down below will see my light!
Yes, that's what I'll be, there can be no doubt:
a shooting star that will never burn out!