{"title":"Prose, Poetry \u0026 Oral Interpretation","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eWe've gathered competition-tested prose, poetry, and program selections from the SpeechGeek library, Mushroom Cloud Press, and Tibetan Treefrog Publishing. All these pieces are ready for high school students to compete with today. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Instant PDF download\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEvents:\u003c\/strong\u003e Prose, Poetry, Program Oral Interpretation (POI), Oral Interpretation of Literature\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLength:\u003c\/strong\u003e Cuttable for anything from five-minute rounds to ten-minute POI programs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUse:\u003c\/strong\u003e Competition, showcases, classroom performance; NSDA-eligible\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReady for a variety of state league events.\u003c\/strong\u003e These pieces fit Prose and Poetry Interpretation (Texas UIL and TFA), Prose Reading and Poetry Reading (Illinois), Interpretive Reading and Literary Program (Iowa), Interpretation of Prose and Poetry (Kansas), Serious and Humorous Prose (Nebraska), Poetry Reading and Storytelling (South Dakota), and Prose, Poetry, and Extemporaneous Reading (Minnesota)\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"copy-of-tibetan-treefrog-publishing-poetry-package","title":"Tibetan Treefrog Publishing: Poetry Package","description":"\u003cp\u003eTibetan Treefrog Publishing was created to specifically produce selections for forensic competition. The editions can contain original Prose, Poetry, Humorous\/Dramatic pieces, Duets and even Oral Declamation written by our staff. Each edition contains between five to seven pieces. Our staff is comprised of people who have taught and competed at both the national high school and college level. We know what wins! We also understand the importance of finding new material. By purchasing Tibetan Tree Frog materials you will have that edge. Be the one who brings winning pieces to your team. They will thank you for years to come.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eOUR PHILOSOPHY\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Our goal in coming together was to create new and competitive pieces for the forensic circuit. Both coaches and students often struggle to find texts that are not overdone. We also understand that many excellent texts are unable to be cut due to various factors. With dwindling budgets, coaches need to maximize their buying power. We strive to write ready to compete, affordable selections. Some cutting may be necessary for specific event guidelines but all our pieces range from 7 to 15 minutes in length. TTF is dedicated to the production of a quality, product that will give our customers a competitive edge. We will not allow a piece to be published that we are not 100% sure can be a winner. Other companies have sprung up over the years mimicking our approach but you will find when it comes to the heart and soul of what makes a company like this work, writing, no one comes close. Our proven track record at local, state and national tournaments is proof that what we are doing, works.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNOTE: TIBETAN TREEFROG PUBLICATIONS ARE CURRENTLY ONLY AVAILABLE FOR DIGITAL DOWNLOAD.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Poetry Package comes with 19 Poetry scripts:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eA.D.D.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Man and a Boy on a Bike\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCivie Libs\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinger Poem\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eForever Alone\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHome Alone\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI'm Not Fat on the Moon\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKid Love\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast 4 Days\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLifesaver Man\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLost and Found\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMan with a Broom\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy Son the Poet\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePluralistic Mind\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeparation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSticks and Carrots\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Biggest Fish I Ever Caught\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWaste Not Want Not\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWords\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tibetan Treefrog Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Digital Only","offer_id":70598332,"sku":"ttf-poetry","price":85.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0063\/1942\/products\/tibetan_treefrog_publishing_12.png?v=1579886288"},{"product_id":"speechgeek-prose-poetry-bundle","title":"SpeechGeek - Nationals Prose and Poetry - Selections for OI events and supplementals","description":"\u003ch3\u003eIn this collection, we've compiled 10 years of poetry and prose published for students attending NSDA Nationals in need of pieces for supplemental events. \u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut these stories and poetry programs can be used all year! If you're searching for prose and poetry selections for UIL, NSDA, or local and state competitions, then look no further. We've bundled together over a dozen short stories and collections of poetry to help you prepare for competition and NSDA supplementals. They're all competition eligible with ISBN and copyright information included. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith a focus on making an immediate impact with less preparation, these scripts are particularly good for novice performers, as well as experienced students looking to add more interp events to their competition schedule. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrab this set and start competing today with pieces proven to win at the highest level!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBreaking the Water By Lorraine White\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e“Big fish eat little fish,” expounds the narrator of White’s story. While trying to make ends meet working for a fishing company on the verge on bankruptcy, he navigates the troubled waters of his job and the birth of his second child. A detailed and heartfelt work, this story will wow audiences from start to finish.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMan of Steel By Joseph Conway\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eJohn couldn’t cry at his own wife’s funeral. Ever since that day, he’s been working on what his psychiatrist calls his “emotional circuitry.” Conway delivers an emotionally charged experience of using a second traumatic experience to get over the first and taking a life in order to get his own back.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Shepherd of Chi-town By Doug Osgood\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eBy nature, a street performer’s life is an act—an illusion. Osgood tells the story of a young man who was always a performer who wanted nothing more than to entertain his family. When people are laughing they don’t ask questions, they just watch. Life is his stage, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get caught in other people’s dramas.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWolf By Sara Reinhelt\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eAndrew isn’t a liar—at least in his mind. He’s more of what you call a purveyor of imaginative fictions. In this thrilling drama, it’s hard to tell what is fact and what is fiction. Audiences will hope to see it again in final rounds just to figure out the twist.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhy I Tutor at the International Center By Grace Bruenderman\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eAward-winning poet Grace Bruenderman gives the audience a lesson in her performance piece on teaching and multiculturalism. A master of wordplay and observation, Brunderman’s poems effortlessly share while intriguing audiences.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMixed Up by Meredith Stein\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eGrowing up in a family of a mixed marriage often presents social and emotional challenges. When the budding relationship between a teenage girl and her best friend Marcus takes a romantic turn, mother neither accepts nor approves of the young couple. This selection suitable for middle and high school competitors explores race, relationships, and the double standards we often create.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCould’ve Been Worse by Trevor Anders\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eEveryone’s had a bad first date. Turns out that some folks have a lot of them. This quirky selection steers a young man through a bad first date and the ensuing aftermath. The good news is that he has a best friend who lets him know it could have been worse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cb\u003eCutting Cords by Trevor Anders\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eTwo brothers separated by an ocean attempt to mend their broken relationship on the elder’s wedding day. This selection explores the emotions and experiences that connect twins while showing just how difficult—and sometimes forgiving—siblings can be.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGrowing Up Girl by Julia Neva\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eIt isn’t easy growing up as a girl in America. Between trying to make the grade, win the game, and get the friends, girls are faced with an oppressive pressure to achieve perfection. By examining the struggle to be herself, we are able to empathize with what modern girls face on the path to adulthood.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMemory Drive by Michael Hix and Will Schuster\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHuman beings are driven by memory--either the need to rely on it for day to day activities or to shape their personal history and identity. So what happens when our memory fails us (“Malfunction”) or is incomplete (“Ghosts”).\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eSecond Opinion by Steven Guthrie\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eMost people find doctor’s offices to be the most uncomfortable place on Earth. Conversely, Mr. Ellison is quite at home among the sterile white walls and outdated copies of Redbook magazine. Guthrie’s short prose looks at why folks visit the doctor and why they keep coming back, even if there’s nothing wrong.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMy Week as the Other by Isabelle Owens\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eOwens’ experimental work of fiction takes the form of a parent’s angry letter to her son’s high school principal. In the letter, she expresses her frustration over a classroom experiment in which her son must attempt to learn “what it is like to be a woman.” As she writes, “I just happen to believe that some things in this world are challenging enough without having a grade assigned to them.”\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Prodigy by Richard Shelton\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProse Interpretation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe protagonist of Shelton’s short story is the one of the most famous people on the internet. With a bone disorder limiting his abilities to act like a normal kid, he begins to play the cello. His stellar ability to craft and share music has drawn attention from far and wide. When the music stops, he must find a new rhythm to guide his life.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMale Pregnancy by Jonathon Harper\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003ePoetry Interpretation Program Builder\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eThis pair of poems from new author Jonathon Harper explores pregnancy from the perspective of the male. The choices that men can and cannot make in the process come to life through word and wit.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRedefining Romance by Sarah Carpenter\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePoetry Interpretation Program Builder\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eFor years, men held the cards when it came to expressing and pursuing love. Now it's time for the ladies to rightfully reclaim the relationship reigns.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SpeechGeek","offers":[{"title":"Digital Only","offer_id":530724573,"sku":"sg-bundle-propoe","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0063\/1942\/files\/Prose_Poetry-Nationals.png?v=1792437466"},{"product_id":"classic-prose-collection-16-stories-mushroom-cloud-pressspeechgeek-prose-poetry-bundle-copy","title":"Classic Prose Collection - 16 Stories - Mushroom Cloud Press","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e16 brilliant short stories from legendary writers\u003c\/strong\u003e, selected for uniqueness, character, and suitability for performance. We sorted through hundreds of classic tales to find the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003epieces perfect for modern audiences and students performers\u003c\/strong\u003e, but not clichéd or overdone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthors included:\u003c\/strong\u003e Kurt Vonnegut, J.M. Barrie, H.G. Wells, H.H. Munro, Virginia Woolf, Philip K. Dick, and more!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese stories can all be trimmed to range in time from 5-10 minutes when performed, depending on the performer and cutting.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStudents will be excited to work with these vibrant pieces\u003c\/strong\u003e. All subject matter is well-suited for both middle school and high school competitors.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cb\u003eEXCLUSIVE BONUS! \u003c\/b\u003eTwo stories by\u003cstrong\u003e Clyde Hendrickson \u003c\/strong\u003e(author of \u003cem\u003eThe Merchandise King and Everyone's Gonna Die\u003c\/em\u003e)\u003c\/span\u003e. Available only in this collection, these two mythological comedies give readers all the outrageous twists and ridiculous lines they can handle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith stories from Shakespeare to the 21st century, this collection comes with all necessary information for validating authenticity of the text, including an ISBN and a copyright page.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mushroom Cloud Press","offers":[{"title":"Digital Only","offer_id":46345588900003,"sku":"mcp-classic-prose","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0063\/1942\/files\/CopyofClassicProseCollection_d84c0384-133e-4709-9ff6-6fa8ae5a3faf.png?v=1760028231"},{"product_id":"speechgeek-competition-poetry-oral-interp","title":"SpeechGeek - Competition Poetry - 17 oral interp pieces and programs","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompetition Poetry\u003c\/strong\u003e brings together seventeen poetry interpretation pieces and program builders (with poems and program segments competitors can assemble into a complete performance for rounds).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA sample of what's included: A speaker chases fame with total confidence, then turns around to ask why a country is so hungry to watch its idols burn in \u003cem\u003e(IN)FAMOUS\u003c\/em\u003e. A daughter watching her mother lose her hair to chemo turns her anger on the pink ribbons meant to be helping in \u003cem\u003eRethinking Pink\u003c\/em\u003e. Arthur's forgotten stepsister finally tells her own story across centuries of names and disguises in \u003cem\u003eThe Life and Times of Morgan Le Faye\u003c\/em\u003e. The collection is strong in literary merit without sacrificing performability; these are poems that shine when read aloud.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Poetry Interpretation and Poetry Program Builder pieces\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eCast:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 performer\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSubject matter includes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Identity, family, grief, community, love, life, and the community\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eContent:\u003c\/strong\u003e Mostly \"clean.\" All of our scripts are appropriate for high school performers, with any mature themes flagged in the description file.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery piece is NSDA-eligible, copyrighted, and ISBN-registered. Buying the collection gives your team a full library of ready-to-perform poetry programs for seasons to come. Looking to give your kids a leg up in oral interpretation and supplemental rounds? Lean on our 20 years of experience publishing poetry and prose that wins judges' favor and audience approval.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e(IN)FAMOUS\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA speaker chases fame with total confidence, then turns around and asks why an entire country is so hungry to watch its idols burn.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Program Builder\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe program opens on a young voice counting down to stardom with giddy, specific images of magazine covers and paparazzi chases, refusing to picture any other future for itself. The second piece turns that ambition sinister, casting fame as a siren's call that possesses a body until it moves and thinks like something inhuman, ending as a graceless asteroid mistaking its own collision for a shooting star.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece pulls all the way back to indict the audience itself, tracing decades of manufactured celebrity from Marilyn Monroe and Elvis through Britney, Whitney, and Amy Winehouse, and naming the public's appetite as the real force behind every one of those collapses. It moves from personal hunger to collective hunger and back, building its case entirely out of real, named public figures rather than abstraction.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eBeing That Guy\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eTony Damico\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA hopelessly awkward guy tries on every romantic cliché he can think of before admitting he's really just a corn chip in disguise.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eTony Damico\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, male voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe program moves through four connected pieces that each stage a different failed attempt at romantic bravado: a nervous, self-interrupting kiss poem that keeps undercutting its own sappy metaphors, a comic send-up of the \"nice guy\" trope stacked with references from Pee-Wee Herman to Rambo, a hesitant love poem about two guarded people circling each other, and finally a party story where he chokes on his own self-description and settles for comparing himself to a nacho cheese Dorito. The pieces share a running joke about wanting to sound impressive and landing flat instead, and the comedy never talks the real nervousness underneath it out of the room.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eBurned Out\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eJulia Neva\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA relentless daily grind gives way to a dancer's ruined body, and then to an entire high school buckling under the same exhaustion.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eJulia Neva\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe program opens with a stripped-down, almost telegraphic list of one overloaded day — snooze, class, work, repeat — building its rhythm purely through repetition. The second piece shifts to a dancer mourning a body that quit before her heart or mind could, contrasting a lifetime of total devotion to dance against someone else's casual claim of \"burning out,\" and daring that person to explain what real burnout actually costs.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece widens to an entire school, opening with one veteran teacher who walks out mid-class and never returns, then following how the word \"burnout\" spreads through the staff until the whole community is forced to relearn what it actually means. It moves outward from routine, to individual collapse, to collective reckoning, without losing its plainspoken tone at any stage.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eAn Electron Tragedy\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eJesse Gall\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA girl falls for the boy who teaches her that touch, biologically speaking, doesn't really exist — and then leaves her holding onto the metaphor anyway.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eJesse Gall\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, female voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eBuilt around the repeated refrain \"the man of my dreams in my freshman biology class,\" the poem moves chronologically from the first spark of attraction, through a relationship that deepens into real intimacy, to his sudden departure and his clinical explanation that two people's electrons never actually touch, only repel close enough to feel like something. From there it tracks her withdrawal from him in language borrowed straight from addiction, before she reclaims the same science-class metaphor for herself, deciding that the feeling was worth having even if the science says it wasn't real. The poem never breaks its classroom conceit, using it instead to carry the whole arc from infatuation to heartbreak to acceptance.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eThe Godself Series\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eBonny McDonald\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA performer builds their own private religion out of daily choices, community, and the constant work of becoming a better version of themselves.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eBonny McDonald\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFramed by a hip-hop lyric about letting your \"godself\" loose, the program opens with a brief meditation on humanity's self-centered relationship to the earth before launching into a breathless, rapid-fire catalog of the speaker's values and contradictions — veganism, protest, bike commuting, self-forgiveness — delivered in one unbroken rush of rhyme and slang. It shifts into a quieter, prayer-like refrain asking for help becoming that better self, then into an extended \"warrior\" persona piece that builds real solemnity before deliberately puncturing itself with a fart joke.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eIt closes on a long, specific litany of everyone and everything the speaker actually believes in, from named friends and mentors down to worms and okra, ending on a declaration of self-reliance. The piece moves between manifesto, prayer, and gratitude list without ever taking its own reverence too seriously for long.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eHiding Behind the Humor\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eCourtney Wright, Christopher Ellis and Jonnie Ray Delta\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA comedian who can't stop cracking jokes even at his brother's hospital bedside finally lets slip that the humor was never really about being funny.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCourtney Wright, Christopher Ellis and Jonnie Ray Delta\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe program opens with a defiant, profanity-laced defense of dark comedy aimed at anyone who gets offended, before landing in a real hospital room where the speaker jokes through a childhood drinking story to cut through his family's fear, right up until his injured brother needs a joke just to feel normal again. The jester piece reframes that same coping mechanism as an entire identity, following someone pushed into comedy since childhood because it was the only way people ever responded to him, now terrified that one bad joke could cost him everything.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece turns the same deflection toward a relationship, leaning on pop-culture one-liners to avoid saying anything real until the mask finally starts to slip. Assembled from three different writers under one theme, the program moves consistently toward the same reveal, that the jokes are covering for something the speaker is too scared to say directly.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eIn All Directions\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eNancy Harper\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA homemade time machine sets up a conversation with an eighty-year-old future self — and a reckoning with how carelessly we discard the people we call old.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eNancy Harper\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe poem opens with a whimsical device, a rickety time machine, to stage a conversation between the speaker as a child and their aging future self, using it to expose how differently we treat the same fear of death at ten versus eighty. It moves through a sharp riff on tired pop-culture stereotypes of the elderly before dropping into a specific, quieter memory of a birthday dinner interrupted by a father's medical collapse and a mother's strangely flat response.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFrom there it widens into a broader indictment of how families warehouse aging relatives and treat retirement as an expiration date, before circling back to insist that beginnings and endings deserve the same regard. The poem keeps swinging between broad satire and specific memory, letting the two tones argue with each other instead of settling into one.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eThe Life and Times of Morgan Le Faye\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eSaeed Jones\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eArthur's forgotten stepsister finally gets to tell her own story, through centuries of names, deaths, and disguises.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eSaeed Jones\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation Program Builder\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, female voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe first piece has Morgan speak directly to Arthur, teasing him about the childhood they shared before their names and reputations hardened into legend, comparing their identities to stones worn smooth by moving water. The second piece pulls back centuries further, into a stranger past life where Morgan became literal landscape, a hill mourned on by grieving women for three hundred years before choosing to become something that could sing again.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece surveys her long history of reinvention, cycling through sorceress, hag, and priestess, dying and returning again and again, and ends with her shedding one identity like a dropped dress and walking away renewed. The three pieces move backward and forward through her history rather than in strict order, building a portrait of a woman whose only constant is change.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003ePast the Profundity\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eStephanie Patterson\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA poet answers another poet's arrogant manifesto by cataloguing everyone poetry actually belongs to, then turns the same argument on her own family.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eStephanie Patterson\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe program opens as a direct rebuttal to a poet who declared that apolitical poetry is a waste of time, building a list of who poetry really serves — teenage poets soaked in angst, aging beat poets, street poets, and an old man secretly writing love poems for a wife whose memory is fading — and landing on the claim that a poem doesn't need to overthrow the world to matter, just to change one mind. The second piece narrows sharply to a single image: an elderly widower lost in a cereal aisle, still mourning a wife who once shared his mornings.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece follows a visit home for a mother's birthday dinner, moving through family small talk, grandparents casually discussing their own burial plots, and a father's undisclosed heart condition, before the speaker breaks down picturing the funeral to come. It moves from public argument to private grief without ever losing its eye for small, specific detail.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eProud to be a B\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eJuniper Mariat\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA woman reclaims the insult men throw at outspoken women, and dares them to come up with something better.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eJuniper Mariat\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, female voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe poem opens by naming the exact moment a woman gets punished with a slur for simply standing up for herself, then runs through the excuses used to dismiss her — hysterical, PMSing, delicate — before flipping each one into a badge of toughness, comparing herself to rawhide, a battleship, and heavy metal. It challenges anyone determined to call her a \"b-word\" to at least be more creative about it, offering up a list of alternatives, before closing on the claim that no amount of intimidation can crack a woman's resolve and reclaiming the original word outright. Built almost entirely from stacked, escalating comparisons, it gathers real momentum toward its final, unapologetic line.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eRethinking Pink\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eJulia Neva\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA daughter watching her mother lose her hair to chemo turns her anger on the pink ribbons meant to be helping.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eJulia Neva\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Program Builder\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, female voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe program opens with a daughter accompanying her mother to a lumpectomy, cataloguing rows of wig names and the surreal, \"foreign and artificial\" feeling of watching a parent's identity strip away alongside her hair, before landing on the fear of losing her mother outright. It pivots sharply into satire with a bake-sale organizer's rallying speech, mocking how breast cancer awareness gets flattened into pink cupcakes and ribbon-wrapped merchandise sold as \"fighting\" the disease.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece follows a classroom scene where a boy's novelty bracelet triggers the speaker's frustration with how cutely the disease gets marketed, before she names the real, unglamorous losses inside her own family. The program moves from grief to satire and back to grief, using that whiplash to make its point about performative awareness versus real support.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eTake 43\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eCollin Aldridge\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA hotshot Hollywood director keeps reshooting the \"morning after\" scene of his own life until he can't tell where the movie ends and the loneliness begins.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCollin Aldridge\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, male voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe poem opens by walking through the director's mansion and career like an opening tracking shot, establishing his ego, his taste for grit and profanity, and his contempt for TV censorship, before revealing that his own formula for a hit — believability, entertainment, relatability — has quietly stopped applying to his own life. It replays the same morning-after scene take after take, with the woman beside him vanishing every time he blinks, escalating from swagger into real panic as the takes climb past forty.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eIt closes on the first take where the fantasy actually holds, leaving him staring at the one outcome his own script couldn't manufacture. Structured explicitly like film-set shorthand — scene directions, \"cut,\" climbing take numbers — the device tracks a man's ego breaking down in real time.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eTension at Home\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eSaeed Jones\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA man traces his family's fractures and his own accent back to where they started, and finds he can't fully erase either one.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eSaeed Jones\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Program Builder\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, male voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe first piece builds the speaker's origin story out of broken images — burnt letters, divorce papers, a father who leaves the same day he's asked to be one — braided together with mythology and the literal meaning of his own name, happy and fortunate, which he isn't sure he believes. The second piece narrows to a single afternoon after a breakup, staged as a surreal, overflowing feast where every plate holds a memory and the speaker is the only guest seated at the table.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece follows him leaving the South and trying to scrub his accent and drawl out of his mouth in the North, only to find it keeps resurfacing anyway, especially after a drink. Across all three, the poems keep circling back to things that refuse to be erased no matter how hard he tries.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eUntil We Meet Again\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eShane Cole\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eAt a beloved grandfather's funeral, a distracting playlist and a stubborn, knowing smirk push the speaker toward something they weren't expecting to find that day.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eShane Cole\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe poem moves through the practical, exhausting choreography of a funeral day — choosing a casket, gathering flowers with cousins, feeding a houseful of relatives — while returning again and again to one detail the speaker can't let go of, a calm smirk on the grandfather's face that feels like an unfinished message. That tension resolves through an unlikely device, a shuffled playlist where song after song seems to answer the same question, followed by a dream where the grandfather appears at peace and finally speaks plainly. It moves from grief-numbed ritual through distraction to a specific, personal answer, using music as the thread that carries the whole piece.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eWhat Do You See When You See Me?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eJulia Neva\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA girl who once played at being invisible for fun grows up to find she's become invisible for real, and spends the rest of the piece trying to be seen again.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eJulia Neva\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Program Builder\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, female voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe program opens with a childhood game in which the speaker \"turns invisible\" for fun, sneaking past siblings and eavesdropping on gossip, before that same trick curdles into something involuntary at school, where classmates look straight through her and she has to relearn how to get noticed at all. The second piece moves into a relationship where a partner constantly measures her against another woman, forcing her to reshape herself point by point, before she reclaims her own worth once he's gone.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece widens into a broader complaint about a culture glued to its phones and missing the people right in front of it, landing on a direct plea to look up and actually pay attention. It moves from a personal, almost playful memory to a specific romantic wound to a wider social observation, tying all three back to the same question of who actually gets seen.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eWhat You See Ain't What You Get\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eTiembé Maboola\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA string of encounters across one lifetime, from a childhood collision on the monkey bars to a stranger singing on a street corner, chips away at how little we actually see when we look at another person.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eTiembé Maboola\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProgram Oral Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe program opens by refusing to be won over by surface-level attraction, insisting that real connection means seeing past first impressions to the messier truth underneath. The middle piece then moves chronologically through ages eight to twenty, tracking how race and difference get noticed, weaponized, and finally confronted head-on in a college classroom argument over an all-white reading list.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: solid #C9C6BC 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #C9C6BC .5pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 8.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe final piece follows the speaker after being fired, encountering a street singer who reframes loss entirely and lands the piece's clearest idea: that everyone needs something to sing about. It moves from abstract argument to lived chronology to a single defining encounter, arriving at the same conclusion each time, that judging by appearance misses the point.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eWomen and Scars\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eDeb Royce\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA woman watches another woman with acid burns shopping for groceries and realizes she envies her.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eDeb Royce\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePoetry Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, female voice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003eThe poem starts as an act of looking: the speaker studies a stranger's face, half unmarked and half scarred by acid, and names plainly where that kind of violence against women comes from and why. From there it widens out into everything else done to women under the same logic, before turning back on the speaker herself, who admits the thing she can't quite say out loud, that she envies a pain other people can actually see. Built from hard, stacked images rather than a linear story, it asks for control, stillness, and the nerve to sit inside discomfort.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SpeechGeek","offers":[{"title":"Digital Copy Only","offer_id":67732282048675,"sku":"SGPOEM","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0063\/1942\/files\/CompetitionPoetry.png?v=1792418149"},{"product_id":"speechgeek-competition-prose","title":"SpeechGeek - Competition Prose - 16 oral interp stories","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eAttempts at Being a Savior\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eRachel Wiggington\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA phone call in the early morning sends a young woman racing to stop her niece from doing something she can't take back.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eRachel Wiggington\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eRaised alongside her niece Sherry more like sisters than aunt and niece, the narrator gets the call every family dreads: Sherry, hysterical and holding a gun, is threatening her boyfriend Chuck after finally hitting a breaking point neither of them saw coming. She drives straight over, talks Sherry into putting the gun down amid a house reduced to broken dishes and shattered picture frames, and takes her home — the whole ordeal circling back to a memory from years earlier, when eleven-year-old Sherry taught a grieving teenage narrator how to scream out her pain in the woods after their family lost her father.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThat night, the narrator returns the favor, walking Sherry into those same woods to bury the gun and finally let go of what's been building inside her. The writing is plainspoken and unsentimental even at its most emotional, trusting small physical details to carry the weight.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eBRAINS: A Guidebook For the Newly and Nearly Undead\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eStephanie Patterson Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA newly diagnosed \"member of the undead\" writes the guidebook she wishes she'd had — equal parts gallows humor and survival manual.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eStephanie Patterson Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eStructured as an actual how-to guide, the piece walks the audience through the narrator's own diagnosis with a degenerative neurological disease, reframed wholesale as \"turning\" into one of the undead — from the tingling in her hands after a college basketball game, through the doctor's confirmation, the anger, and practical tips for breaking the news to family. Real zombie-movie tropes (avoid the \"Z-word,\" resist the urge to groan, keep sticky notes handy) sit right alongside a genuinely moving account of watching her own body change and worrying how her kids will remember her. It's a clever conceit that never loses sight of the real fear underneath the joke, earning its laughs without cheapening the grief.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eBruise Ship\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eWaylon Brown and Rob Herrick\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eFive years after high school ended, a guy walks back into the one place he swore he'd never return — his reunion, on a cruise ship, dressed exactly like his old self.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eWaylon Brown and Rob Herrick\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eDetermined not to become one of the \"counterfeit\" people he hated in high school, the narrator shows up to his five-year reunion in wrinkled clothes and old sandals, refusing to perform for a crowd led by his old tormentor Gabe and Gabe's girlfriend — the narrator's own long-ago crush — Stephanie. When nobody at dinner recognizes him at all, the humiliation spirals into a half-dream flashback to childhood, where his grandfather warns him that waiting too long for what he wants only gets him left behind, until Stephanie's voice finally cuts through the crowd and sends the evening into a very public, very awkward moment. It's a funny, self-deprecating piece that turns a string of increasingly cringeworthy setbacks into a genuine, low-key realization about moving on.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eDavid\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eGregg Moeller\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA ten-year-old's question about an old newspaper clipping unlocks a story his grandmother has never told him — about the brother he never knew he had.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eGregg Moeller\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe piece opens with the narrator, as a boy, asking his grandmother what \"stillborn\" means after finding it in his late grandfather's obituary, then drops into her memory of that day decades earlier: a difficult pregnancy, a rush to the hospital with her husband Hank, and the devastating news that the baby didn't survive. Moving between Hank's silent grief, the grandmother's own childhood memory of losing a sister, and finally her brother-in-law's quiet, extraordinary act of climbing a fire escape to bring the baby's body to her one last time, the story builds to the naming of the son she never got to raise. It moves between two grieving family members with real control, letting plainly stated details do the emotional work instead of any authorial commentary.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eThe Dragon Slayer of Eastman Senior High\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eSarah Carpenter\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA self-described weird girl at school channels every unread page of her fantasy writing into the moment her secret journal gets read out loud in the cafeteria.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eSarah Carpenter\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, female\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe narrator, a socially isolated fantasy writer who reserves her wit and confidence for the pages of a journal no one else reads, watches her worst nightmare unfold when her popular tormentor Lacy finds that journal and starts performing its most romantic passages to the whole cafeteria. Rather than melt into the floor, the narrator stands up, calls out Lacy's cruelty directly, and in the process catches a flash of real vulnerability underneath Lacy's meanness — a moment she reads, fluently, in the language of her own dragons-and-castles fiction. It's a sharp, funny piece that takes genre-fantasy narration seriously as a tool for actual self-understanding, turning a familiar public-humiliation setup into something genuinely empowering.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eEndangered Species\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eJane Nicolaas\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eSitting in a clinic waiting room with his girlfriend, a guy has to face the fact that she doesn't want him there — and that he might not agree with her decision.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eJane Nicolaas\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe narrator accompanies his girlfriend Amy to a sexual health clinic, cracking nervous jokes to cut through the hostile silence of the waiting room while he recalls how the two of them met at a college protest years earlier. As the appointment nears, his cover of easy humor falls away and he admits, mostly to himself, that he wanted a say in this decision and doesn't think he agrees with it — even as he knows, and says, that it's her body and her choice.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eWhen her name is finally called and she walks through the door without him, he's left alone with the room's judgmental stares and the realization of how much has changed between them in the space of an afternoon. The piece stays tightly inside one guy's conflicted, unresolved feelings without ever pretending there's an easy answer.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eThe Graveyard Shift\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eJane Nicolaas\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA guy who just quit his job as an EMT keeps coming back to the same 3 a.m. grocery register — for the cashier, not the Yoo-hoo.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eJane Nicolaas\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, male\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eDoug spends his nights leaning on Sam's register at an all-night grocery store, trading jokes and easy banter until her mood turns and she opens up, in coded, half-metaphorical language about a childhood oak tree and a sadness she's clearly been guarding for a long time. Doug, still working through his own reasons for walking away from a job spent watching people live or die, recognizes in her a similar instinct to hide, and pushes past his own hesitation to tell her so — risking the easy friendship they've built for something more honest. The dialogue-driven piece builds its central metaphor patiently and pays it off in a quiet, earned final exchange.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eHe Looked Like a Mortician\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eCorey Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA stranger strikes up a conversation with a young woman on a park bench — and it turns out he already knows exactly how and when her life is supposed to end.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCorey Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe narrator, an oddly formal, black-suited figure who turns out to be Death himself, sits down next to Leslie Lohman on a park bench and lets her flirt her way through guessing his profession while he privately works through a very literal to-do list: Leslie is client number 100 billion, and today is the day she's scheduled to die. A last-minute correction from \"the office\" reveals the wrong Leslie Lohman was on the docket, buying this one decades she wasn't supposed to have — and rather than walk away clean, the narrator breaks protocol to nudge her toward a longer, gentler life before heading off to his actual appointment. It's a witty, literate monologue that plays bureaucratic deadpan against real warmth, landing its final, quiet act of kindness.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eThe King of Nerd Camp\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eCorey Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eTwo counselors decide to make the shyest kid at a gifted summer camp into its most popular.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCorey Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe narrator, a twenty-one-year-old counselor at a summer program for academically gifted teens, notices Harry Chalmers eating alone and sits down with him on a whim. That one lunch turns into a scheme: tell everyone at camp how great Harry is and see if it sticks.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eIt works better than expected — campers, other counselors, the whole cafeteria buy in — until Harry's carried onto the talent show stage in a cardboard crown and brings the house down. It's warm, self-mocking, and asks a real question underneath the comedy: whether any of it was for Harry, or for the narrator.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eLearning to Fall\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eMillay McCain\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eTwo sisters spend a childhood convinced they're magic — until the day they climb a tree and try to prove it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eMillay McCain\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eRaised on fairy tales and Renaissance festivals, the narrator and her younger sister Mattie spend their childhood fully committed to a shared belief in magic, culminating in the day they tape magnolia leaves to their arms, climb twenty-five feet into a tree, and jump, convinced they'll fly. The fall breaks a bone in the narrator's foot and, more lastingly, breaks something between the sisters — Mattie furious at having been \"tricked,\" the narrator quietly devastated that they weren't, in fact, special.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eYears later, on the drive to their grandmother's funeral, the two revisit the memory and discover they each kept a completely different piece of it, landing on a genuinely lovely, unresolved note about which version of childhood actually happened. The storytelling is warm and specific about a particular fantasy-soaked childhood, and it earns its bittersweet ending honestly.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eOrigin Story\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eJulia Neva\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA mother looks back on the game that gave her withdrawn son something to be proud of — and the night her husband decided it had gone too far.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eJulia Neva\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe narrator recalls how her son Chris found belonging in a fantasy card game after a difficult family move left him isolated, throwing himself into building decks, notebooks, and artwork while his gruff, disapproving father Hank made no secret of his disgust. The tension comes to a head after Chris paints a loving fantasy-themed family portrait for a school open house — a moment of real pride that Hank answers, the next day, by burning every card, notebook, and drawing Chris owns, alongside a note calling him a freak.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eThe story moves without flinching to the discovery of what that cruelty cost, and closes on the narrator's own present-day compulsive hoarding as the only way she's found to keep from losing anything else. It's a devastating piece that never overplays its hand, letting ordinary domestic detail carry almost unbearable weight.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eThe Prodigy\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eRichard Shelton\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA viral video made a fragile kid famous for his cello playing — but it's what happened after the cameras stopped that he actually wants to talk about.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eRichard Shelton\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eBorn with a bone condition that ruled out any rough play, the narrator finds an unexpected outlet in a middle school music class, where the cello becomes the first thing in his life that makes him feel powerful instead of breakable — until a home video of his playing goes viral and turns him into a target for online trolls and, worse, a bully at school named Rusty. After enduring months of escalating harassment, a final confrontation leaves the narrator with a shattered hand that will never fully heal, ending his ability to play for good. Told in a young, conversational voice, the piece is unflinching about what was actually taken from him, closing on a small, aching image of a life reduced to feeling music through the floor instead of playing it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eSecret Identities\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eCorey Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA comic-book-obsessed teenager gets bullied into hiding — until a hospital visit dressed as his favorite superhero forces him to actually become one.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCorey Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, male\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eBen Bridges spends his Wednesdays at Secret Identities, the run-down comic shop owned by his friend Chuck, escaping a home life split by his parents' divorce and a school life defined by getting shoved around by star athlete Tripp Gibson. After Tripp and his friends destroy a stack of Chuck's comics and humiliate Ben in front of his crush, a guidance counselor's odd request — put on a studio-quality Spider-Man suit and visit a dying eight-year-old through his hospital window — gives Ben an unexpected shot at being the hero he's only ever read about, and an even more unexpected confrontation with the boy's older brother, who turns out to be Tripp himself. The story earns its costume-and-cape premise by grounding every bit of the fantasy in real adolescent loneliness, landing its themes of empathy and growing up without ever losing its sense of humor.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eThrough These Gates\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eCorey Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA guy drags himself to a dance club with his best friend, convinced he already knows exactly which circle of hell he's stuck in — until a stranger at a coffee shop proves him wrong.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCorey Alderdice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eNarrating the club scene as an elaborate, tongue-in-cheek version of Dante's rings of hell, the narrator sorts every guy on the dance floor into a type — Searchers, the Wolfpack, Sweepers, the one lucky Saint — while nursing a hopeless crush on Lucy, the platonic best friend he drives to clubs and watches dance with other men all night. After a blowup with Lucy sends him storming out into the cold alone, he winds up at an all-night coffee shop, still dressed in the ridiculous outfit she picked out for him, and meets someone who actually sees him. It's a genuinely funny, literate piece of self-mockery that earns its extended metaphor and lands on real, unforced hope by the end.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eTrevor and Travis\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eOdell Workman\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eTwin brothers who grew up racing each other along a fence line have to figure out how to grieve side by side instead of in competition.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eOdell Workman\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, gender flexible\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-width: medium medium 1pt; border-style: none none solid; border-color: currentcolor currentcolor rgb(201, 198, 188); padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 8pt;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; border: medium none currentcolor;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eTwenty-three-year-old Trevor comes home to Kentucky to find his grandmother dying, and spends her final days trying to keep a promise to himself not to cry — even as his twin brother Travis, the family's steadier presence, openly does. Weaving between the morning after her death, a tender memory of her last conversation with Trevor about heaven and September 11, and the childhood game of fence-post hopping the brothers used to play, the piece follows Trevor as he works through guilt over having missed the last month of her life and slowly lets his brother back in. It closes with Trevor returning to that same fence as an adult, laughing and crying at once, in a scene that pays off the story's central image without over-explaining it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003eWhen I Made Him Cry\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; color: #1f4e79;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eDoug McConnaha\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 6.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.5pt;\"\u003eA woman remembers the first time she ever saw her father cry — and the very different day, years later, when she made him cry again.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003ePlaywright: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eDoug McConnaha\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eFormat: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eProse Interpretation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -15.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; margin: 0in 0in 2.0pt .25in;\"\u003e\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]--\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e•\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c!--[endif]--\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003eCast: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt;\"\u003e1 performer, female\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 10.0pt 0in 3.0pt 0in;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003eMary recalls being nine years old and getting badly caught in a barbed-wire fence retrieving a ball, and how her single father's steady, controlled panic got her through the accident, the drive to the ER, and the stitches that followed — right up until she noticed his own hand bleeding and realized, for the first time, that he'd been hurt trying to free her, and that he was crying. The story then jumps forward to her wedding day, where the same phrase he used to comfort her that day — \"it's just part of being a dad\" — comes back around during their father-daughter dance, this time from her to him. Told with plain, unadorned warmth, it's a tightly structured two-scene piece that earns its emotional payoff without a wasted word.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SpeechGeek","offers":[{"title":"Digital Copy Only","offer_id":67732282146979,"sku":"SGPROSE","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0063\/1942\/files\/CompetitionProse_1.png?v=1792437536"}],"url":"https:\/\/speechgeekmarket.com\/collections\/prose-poetry-interpretation-pieces.oembed","provider":"SpeechGeek Market","version":"1.0","type":"link"}