Aoise Stratford didn't get into writing for the drama.

The Cayuga Heights author and playwright earned her Master of Fine Arts in fiction from the University of San Francisco, and she currently teaches academic writing classes at Ithaca College.

But for Stratford, 38, writing plays allows for experiences that short stories, essays or novels cannot offer.

“My favorite place in the whole world is the rehearsal room, where people are literally trying things out,” she said. “You get to see this thing you created become a whole other creature walking around.”

This weekend, Stratford will see one of her plays performed by the Auburn Players at the Morgan Opera House. “Henry's Wives,” which focuses on the six wives of Henry VIII, was selected as the winner of the Gloria Peters Playwright Competition. Stratford also received a $250 prize.

In “Henry's Wives,” Catherine of Aragon (Henry's first wife) sits in Limbo on the 500th anniversary of their marriage. Having paid enough penance for failing him as a wife, she summons Henry in order to reinstate herself as his true queen. But along with the king come five other queens, and the women must work out their legacies among themselves, as well as that of the husband they had in common.

History often views these six women as the wives of the infamous king, who had two of them beheaded, Stratford said. She wanted to reverse the trend.

“This play is not about Henry,” Stratford said. “This play puts his wives first, and we get to see what we can lean about the man through them. Six women who are all married to the same man can see him very, very differently.”

Born in Australia, Stratford moved to California nine years ago. She relocated to the Ithaca area in 2004 with her husband, who is a professor of astrophysics at Cornell University. Today, the two also live with their one-year-old daughter.

Though she said she can't quite make a full living as a playwright, Stratford has seen close to 100 of her own short and full-length plays performed on stage, including productions in Australia, Canada and Italy. And over the years, she said she has noticed that her writing changes with her location.

The winters on the East Coast, she said, give her more time to focus. In fact, the weather in general has offered inspiration.

“Los Angeles has no seasons, and (New York) is all about the seasons,” Stratford said. “You suddenly realize that the earth is turning, and you really become conscious about the passage of time.”

Stratford especially enjoys writing about historic figures or events for the stage, but she likes to examine them from a different point of view. One play she is currently writing focuses a woman who eventually became a victim of the serial killer, Jack the Ripper.

The result, she said, allows her to look at something familiar from an unfamiliar point of view. While “Henry's Wives” focuses on the queens, Stratford hopes that it may shed some new light on the king.

“We think of Henry VIII as such a monster today,” she said. “But these were smart, powerful women he found. What did they see in him?”

But anyone looking for a history lesson might be disappointed. Stratford researched these women for years, and the piece's historical references are accurate. However, this play examines themes like lost love and controlling how history portrays you more than recites facts, figures and dates.

“This is not a reenactment,” Stratford said. “But I would hope that when people walk out of the theater, they will have received a much more human look at these women who led six pretty extraordinary lives.”

Staff writer Christopher Caskey can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or christopher.caskey@lee.net.