The Beat Drop - Bethany Dickens Assaf
Stories Found
It’s Micro Monday, and this week we’re bringing you a short comedy where the BPM is high but the emotional stability is low. It’s The Beat Drop — a hilarious and delightfully awkward one-minute play by Bethany Dickens Assaf. Bethany Dickens Assaf is an award-winning playwright, director, and dramaturg based in Orlando, Florida. Her latest full-length play, Slaymaker, received a United Arts of Central Florida grant and will premiere in August 2025. Bethany is both a personal and audience favorite, and we’re thrilled to feature her work on Stories Found again. Keep an eye out for a...
info_outline
The Balcony - Allison Page
Stories Found
About This Episode It’s Micro Monday and this week we're headed to fair Verona with the wonderfully weird and hilarious short comedy, The Balcony by Allison Page. About the Playwright Allison Page is a writer & comedian in Nashville, Tennessee. She was a semifinalist for the 2025 Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission for There Have Been a Series of Miracles at Shrieking Ridge, and was a proud 2024 Tennessee Playwrights Studio Fellow with her play Roberta at the Bottom of the Pool. Her most recently published play, The Pyramid, is available from YouthPLAYS, and she...
info_outline
History in the Making - Clinton Festa
Stories Found
About This Episode It’s Micro Monday, and we’re bringing you a fast, funny audio comedy: History in the Making by Clinton Festa! History in the Making was the 2023 Cary Playwrights’ Forum Playslam winner. About the Playwright Clinton Festa started his career as a cartoonist and writer for his campus humor magazine. His plays have been produced nationally, in Canada, and in the UK, and are published in several anthologies. His scripts for seniors are published with ArtAge Senior Theatre Resource Center. He wrote and directed a seven-episode podcast series called...
info_outline
Best of Stories Found: 5 Calls - Ladi Loera
Stories Found
About This Episode This fan-favorite story by the incredible storyteller, Ladi Loera, returns as part of our Best of Stories Found series — now featuring our new format that brings the story right to the front of the episode and then offers a behind-the-scenes interview with the storyteller. Whether you're hearing this story for the first time or the fifth, 5 Calls, perfectly nails the nerve-wracking, awkward, and hilariously human moments involved in trying (and trying) to make a connection. About the Storyteller is an artist, animal lover and award winning storyteller. He won the...
info_outline
Vows - Jonathan Wickremasinghe-Kuhn
Stories Found
About This Episode It's Micro Monday! This week we're featuring the short audio comedy, VOWS by Jonathan Wickremasinghe-Kuhn About the Playwright Jonathan Wickremasinghe-Kuhn grew up in Selma, Alabama and attended the University of Southern California, where he received both his BFA in Writing for Screen and Television and his Master of Professional Writing degree. He has performed story-telling multiple times at The Moth and for the Two Truths & A Lie podcast. His plays have been produced by the A Light in Dark Places Festival, the Paragon Festival, Exposition Review, Stage Left Theater,...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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: ...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outlineAbout 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 items. It's a thoughtful and hilarious look at the experience of human emotion.
About the Playwright
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.
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.
- Listen to Clinton's hilarious zombie play in Episode 10: PICKY ZOMBIES.
- Order Clinton’s book, Ancient Canada: a Mythological Tale at CamCat
- Find Clinton on NPX, The New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/74998/clinton-festa
About the Cast
The Experience was performed for us by:
Gabriella Headley as Wife
Joe Llorens as Husband
Tonie Knight as Waitress
Manuel Solis-Bauza as Take Out Customer
About the Crew
Audio Engineer: Paul Hanna and ELA Studios
Featured Organization
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.
Let's be BFFs!
- Leave us a 5 Star Review on Apple Pocdasts or Spotify!
- Find out how to Support the Show!
- Subscribe to our newsletter! storiesfound.substack.com
Thanks for listening to Stories Found! We heart you.
- Find us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube!
- Want to be a featured guest in a future episode? Let's do it. Email: [email protected]
Stories Found was recorded at ELA Studios, deep in the heart of Austin, Texas.