Stories Found 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 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: submissions@storiesfound.com Stories Found was recorded at ELA Studios, deep in the heart of Austin, Texas.
 

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: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/storiesfound
Subscribe to our newsletter! storiesfound.substack.com
Thanks for listening to Stories Found! We heart you.
Want to chat about this episode? We're here for it! Email: hello@storiesfound.com Find us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube! Want to be a featured guest in a future episode? Let's do it. Email: submissions@storiesfound.com Stories Found was recorded at ELA Studios, deep in the heart of Austin, Texas.
 

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 free time, he enjoys trying to remember his own name.
About the Cast
Storyteller: Mark Gifford
About the Crew
This version of Mark's story was recorded at the live storytelling show, Testify, in Austin, Texas
Featured Organization
Our featured organization this week, is one of our very favorite shows, TESTIFY - a live storytelling show in Austin, Texas.
 
The amazing crew at Testify love stories -- hearing them, crafting them, and sharing them. Each month, Testify offers a live show featuring true stories told by the people that lived them.
 
If you're in the Austin area and have a story to tell, they'd love to hear it.
You can submit your own story to one of their themed opportunities on their website, TestifyATX.com
Let's be BFFs!
Subscribe to our newsletter! storiesfound.substack.com
Thanks for listening to Stories Found! We heart you.
Want to chat about this episode? We're here for it! Email: hello@storiesfound.com Find us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube! Want to be a featured guest in a future episode? Let's do it. Email: submissions@storiesfound.com Stories Found was recorded at ELA Studios, deep in the heart of Austin, Texas.
 

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 Whiskey Theater Factory'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
Kimberly Murray Patel considers herself a Renaissance woman in regard to the world of theater, and not just because she is thick and prefers clothing that is lacking in structure. The majority of her time is spent as a freelance costumer for companies in the Central Florida area. When she needs a break from the sewing machine she loves to perform and write short plays. "The Palatka Museum of Natural History" recently won the coveted top honor at the Whiskey Theater Factory's annual one minute play competition.
We'll be featuring Kimberly' ten-minute play, Upgrade, in a future episode, so make sure to subscribe on your favorite app so you don't miss it!
About the Cast

Joe Llorens as Joe
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.

Manuel Solis-Bauza as Brandon
A born and raised Puerto Rican native, Manuel Solis-Bauza is a graduate of the Rollins College class of 2020, having acquired a BA in Theatre Studies and Communication Theory. Seen on the Rollins stage as Shu Fu in Good Person of Setzuan and Solomon in Speech and Debate, Manuel has recently performed in a variety of acclaimed Central Florida shows such as Nick in The Wingman, produced by New Generation Theatrical, Nelson in Our Lady of the Tortilla, produced by Descolonizarte Teatro, and most recently as Kennedy in The Vast of Darkness, produced by Whiskey Theatre Factory and voted as Critics' Choice for Best Drama at Orlando Fringe 2023.

About the Crew
Audio Engineer: Paul Hanna and ELA Studios
Fun Stuff

We've added this play to our Spooky Stories Found playlist on Spotify. It's the perfect playlist for a dark comedy filled Halloween night! If you enjoyed this episode, it'd be the perfect Halloween treat if you left us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! For more exciting ways to show your support, visit our Support the Show page.
Happy Monday and Happy Halloween from all of us at Stories Found! Let's be BFFs!
Subscribe to our newsletter! storiesfound.substack.com
Thanks for listening to Stories Found! We heart you.
Want to chat about this episode? We're here for it! Email: hello@storiesfound.com Find us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube! Want to be a featured guest in a future episode? Let's do it. Email: submissions@storiesfound.com Stories Found was recorded at ELA Studios, deep in the heart of Austin, Texas.
 

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

Brian Rust (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 unforgettable foley effect for a live radio version of CHICKEN HEART. 

Most recently he wrote the audio drama, The View from the Inside, which was selected by Dashingly Quirky for a live performance this November.

About the Cast
Joe Llorens - Dave
Tonie Knight - Ruby
About the Crew
Engineer - Paul Hanna
Featured Organization

Open Air Circus is a is a non-profit community-based group that teaches children circus and performing skills. They offer classes and performances every summer.

To find out more about them and how you can help support their mission, visit them at openaircircus.org
Let's be BFFs!
Subscribe to our newsletter! storiesfound.substack.com
Thanks for listening to Stories Found! We heart you.
Want to chat about this episode? We're here for it! Email: hello@storiesfound.com Find us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube! Want to be a featured guest in a future episode? Let's do it. Email: submissions@storiesfound.com Stories Found was recorded at ELA Studios, deep in the heart of Austin, Texas.

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

Mark Harvey Levine 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 For The Common Man”, “Didn’t See That Coming” and “A Very Special Holiday Special” have been shown around the world, including at the Edinburgh Fringe and in a multi-year tour of Brazil. A Spanish-language film of “The Kiss” (“El Beso”) premiered at Cannes and aired on HBO and DTV (Japan). Two of his plays were adapted for Brazilian television.

Listen to more of Mark's work in these episodes:

Episode 5: The Interview Episode 12: A Very Special Hanukkah Special About the Cast

Kelly: Liz Bernstein

Terry: Gabriella Headley
 
About the Crew
Engineer: Paul Hanna and ELA Studios
Let's be BFFs!
Subscribe to our newsletter! storiesfound.substack.com
Thanks for listening to Stories Found! We heart you.
Want to chat about this episode? We're here for it! Email: hello@storiesfound.com Find us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube! Want to be a featured guest in a future episode? Let's do it. Email: submissions@storiesfound.com Stories Found was recorded at ELA Studios, deep in the heart of Austin, Texas.