Taegel started acting in children’s theater at The University of Houston at age nine and continued acting in plays and UIL tournaments until she started college.  She earned a degree at The University of Texas at Austin where she majored in English and government and chose a career path teaching high school English.  In midlife, she studied playwriting at The University of St. Thomas with playwright Sam Havens who has become a life long mentor.  Her first play, Going Bare, a romantic comedy, has had twenty productions, won a Best New Play Award, has been published, and had two productions in Holland. Two shorter works have been produced during The Texas Playwrights’ Festival at Stages Theatre and at The University of St. Thomas.

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As a teacher, Taegel was a guest lecturer at St. John's School for twelve years in the creative writing class. She taught the structure of story in playwriting using an analysis of Hamlet. At Inprint, she taught the class "How to Write a Ten Minute Play". For the last fifteen years, she has edited novels, dissertations, college application essays, and memoirs.

 

Inspired by nineteenth century governess novels, Taegel saw an opportunity for a musical  combined with a bodice ripper.  Why not  imagine a more exciting life for a young convent girl by giving her a sizzling romance?  For this governess there would be no more languishing in the shadows quietly hoping a dreary rich man will notice her.  She should have passions and guilty temptations.  Hence, the story of Bodice (“Sin, Lust, Depravity”).

 

Taegel is a member of The Dramatists Guild.

 

Development of Bodice was supported by a generous grant from Houston Arts Alliance.