The Experience - Clinton Festa
Stories Found
About This Episode This week on Stories Found, we're talking to one of our favorite playwrights, Clinton Festa, and then hearing his surreal comedy, The Experience. The play follows a couple dining at a restaurant with a twist - instead of food, they serve emotions. Frustration, rejection, nostalgia - it's all on the menu. With snappy dialogue and excellent pacing, Clinton creates a surreal world where feelings truly become tangible menu...
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Burger Bard by Patrick Bates
Stories Found
About This Episode Welcome to Stories Found Micro Monday. This week we've got the one-minute comedy, Burger Bard by Patrick Bates. About the Playwright Pat Bates has been writing plays since he was a kid. Now, he's written for stage and screen, optioned a screenplay, and won some awards along the way. In his spare time, he writes crime/horror/science fiction under the name Jack Bates. About the Cast Manuel Solis-Bauza as Burger Bard Boy Gabriella Headley as Customer About the Crew Audio Engineer - Paul Hanna Let's be BFFs! Want to show your support for Stories Found? Buy us a coffee: ...
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The Brink Of Chaos - Mark Gifford
Stories Found
About This Episode This week we're talking to Mark Gifford and hearing his hilarious story, The Brink of Chaos. About the Storyteller Mark has been a full-time professor of composition and rhetoric at The University of Texas at San Antonio for 18 years and counting. He is also a producer for Testify, a monthly storytelling show in Austin, Texas. Mark is also the co-creator and co-producer for Like Minded Lunatics, where he helps create a weekly television show for Austin Music T.V., as well as short-form video content for the Like Minded Lunatics YouTube channel. When Mark finds himself with...
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The Palatka Museum of Natural History - Kimberly Murray-Patel
Stories Found
About This Episode Welcome to Stories Found Micro Monday -- Halloween Eve edition. This week we've got a special treat, the one minute dark comedy, The Palatka Museum of Natural History by Kimberly Murray-Patel. The Palatka Museum of Natural History recently won the coveted top honor at the 's annual one minute play competition. That means that this play was written in only ten minutes in front of a live audience. It's a phenomenal feat to write anything that quickly, but this play is truly spectacular. About the Playwright: Kimberly Murray-Patel considers herself a Renaissance...
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Spam Calls From Hell - Brian Rust
Stories Found
About This Episode Thanks for joining us for our special Halloween edition of Stories Found! This week we're talking to one of our very favorite playwrights, Brian Rust, and then hearing his eerie dark comedy, Spam Calls from Hell. About the Playwright (he/him) is a Boston-based actor and writer who makes chocolates and searches for cryptids in his spare time. High points of his career include being killed by a pillow during The Robin Hood Faire, appearing on stage with Le Tigre as a member of the Art School Cheerleaders, and using a plunger and ten pounds of jello to create an...
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A Foggy Day in a Certain Part of Scotland - Mark Harvey Levine
Stories Found
About This Episode Welcome to Stories Found Micro Monday -- Spooky Edition. This week we've got the eerie 1-minute play, A Foggy Day in a Certain Part of Scotland by Mark Harvey Levine. About the Playwright / Storyteller has had over 2000 productions of his short plays everywhere from Bangalore to Bucharest and from Lima to London. His plays have won over 45 awards and been produced in more than ten languages. His work has been published in over two dozen anthologies by Applause, Smith & Kraus, Routledge and Vintage. Full evenings of his ten-minute plays, such as “Cabfare...
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Bella and Blue - Jeff Knight
Stories Found
About This Episode This week we’re talking to the uber talented Austin writer and storyteller, Jeff Knight, before hearing his fantastic story, Bella and Blue. About the Storyteller Jeff Knight is a storyteller, poet, songwriter, and aspiring novelist in Austin, Texas. He is currently working on a murder mystery set in the world of craft beer, and featuring an intrepid Great Dane as part of a heroic crime-fighting duo. Special Thanks Bella and Blue was performed by the author, Jeff Knight. This story was recorded live at , a popular storytelling show in Austin, Texas. It was recorded...
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Dog Park - Bethany Dickens Assaf
Stories Found
About This Episode It's Micro Monday! This week we've got the hilarious one-minute play, Dog Park, by one of our very favorite playwrights, Bethany Dickens Assaf. About the Playwright / Storyteller is a freelance playwright, dramaturg, and theatre artist and a co-founder of . As both a writer and producer, she is obsessed with plays that deconstruct and take unusual perspectives on gender and sexuality, challenging audiences and serving untapped artistic voices by creating meaningful roles for women. Listen to more of Bethany's fantastic work in these episodes: About the...
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A Great Fall - Christian Missonak
Stories Found
About This Episode This week we're featuring Christian Missonak and his hilarious ten-minute play, A Great Fall. About the Playwright is a NYC-based playwright originally from Chicago, where he was a graduate of Columbia College and The Second City Conservatory. Plays: Sheridan (Madlab Theatre), Save Ferris (Under the Gun Theatre), Cooperative (Metropolitan Playhouse). Audio: Banana Bread is a Myth (Earworm Audio Theatre podcast, Ep 9). Publication: Nowhere to Go Nights (The High Plains Register), Sheridan excerpt (The Best Men's Stage Monologues 2022 by Smith & Kraus Publishers)....
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Color Guard - Ned Eckhardt
Stories Found
About This Episode It's Micro Monday! Just in time for on the 19th, we've got the hilarious one-minute nautical adventure, Color Guard by Ned Eckhardt Make sure to catch our every other week featuring some of the most talented humorists in the country. Next week, we've got a fantastic full length episode featuring the ten-minute play, A Great Fall by Christian Missonak. Find us on your favorite podcast app or at Stories Found.com Happy Monday from all of us at Stories Found! About the Playwright / Storyteller is a documentarian and writer based in northern Connecticut. He began his...
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In this special Halloween edition of Stories Found, we’re talking to the fantastic playwright and author, Clinton Festa and then listening to his super funny ten-minute play, Picky Zombies.
Picky Zombies – Tragedy strikes at the fancy French cooking school when an inept student under cooks the foie gras leading to a mass zombie infection. The extraction team sent to rescue the lone surviving student quickly learns that not all braaaaaains are created equal and even zombies appreciate gourmet cuisine.
About the Playwright – Clinton Festa
Clinton Festa began his career as a writer and cartoonist for his campus humor magazine. Since then he’s had short plays produced around the U.S. and Canada, comedy sketches that have placed in national competitions, and a novel recently published with CamCat Books (Ancient Canada: a Mythological Tale). During the pandemic, he wrote and directed a seven-episode action-comedy podcast called The Malone Family in the Enchanted Forest (produced by the Cary Playwrights’ Forum). Clinton runs an online book drive for inmates in prisons and juvenile detention centers called Sentences Book Donations. He lives in Greensboro, NC with his wife and children.
Read more of Clinton’s plays on NPX, The New Play Exchange.
Order Clinton’s book, Ancient Canada: a Mythological Tale at CamCat Books.
About the Cast
Picky Zombies was performed for us by:
Liz Bernstein
Liz Bernstein (she/her/hers) is a training facilitator and career coach in Central Florida. Her first loves, however, are acting, singing, performing, and creative writing. In the Central Florida area, she has performed with the Gemini Blvd collegiate a cappella group, Orlando Cringe, Phoenix Tears Productions, Central Florida Community Arts, and Playwrights Roundtable. She has also worked virtually with the Fragmented Festival and is excited to continue working virtually with Stories Found. Liz is a core collective member of Whiskey Theatre Factory, a group dedicated to producing meaningful theatrical productions that uplift, develop, and celebrate emerging and untapped voices. With Whiskey Theatre Factory, she has helped with new play development and production, including new works in the Orlando Fringe Festival. Most recently, Liz was honored to perform the role of “Amy” in Ava Love Hanna’s piece, There Will Be Bears for PRT’s production of Launch.
Joe Llorens
Joe Llorens has been a performer for over twenty years. In that time, he’s done things. Some of those things he’s liked, even. Joe will keep trying to do things he likes and not be as judgy about the things he doesn’t like because he really should cut himself a bit of a break. He loves his wife, children, and pets, though. A lot.
Paul Hanna
Ava Love Hanna
Ava Love Hanna is a professional writer, published playwright, and award-winning speaker and storyteller. She is continually amazed by how often she is mistaken for a real grown-up.
Featured Organization: Sentences Book Donations
Our featured organization this week is Sentences: Book Donations. Their goal is to network readers with prison librarians and juvenile detention centers to determine their needs and donate books for use in their facilities.
You can find the group on Facebook or Goodreads. We encourage you to visit them and see how you can donate books and help further their mission.
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