Last Month in Righteous Outrage

It took a while. But the trolls told on themselves. They always do.

These boys had a busy week in August.
They must be exhausted.

They were rudderless since June, another June spent demanding Straight Pride Month. Like some omnipotent “They” decides these things for us. The trolls never stopped to consider that everyone’s welcome, that there’s a color of the rainbow for straight folks too, that Pride is for all of us. Or that straight people haven’t lived countless generations being ostracized, outcast, excommunicated, disowned, harassed, fired, arrested, assaulted, murdered… for being straight.

But June is behind us and these guys, because it’s mostly guys isn’t it, couldn’t just slink back into their rough caves. Nah. Their pent-up anger sought out any woke thing they could find. Days and weeks of simmering outrage passed, and it all boiled over in the course of a single week in August, when…

Jen Pawol became the first female ump in Major League Baseball.

She’s a first. Celebrate! …unless you can’t take it. (ABC)

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Courage and Redemption

Room 103
– A Title IX Drama –

Room 103 is a stage play set on a contemporary college campus. Warning, what follows involves sexual violence, courage, entitlement, narcissism, and the troubling level of privilege we afford student athletes.

Title IX, signed into law over fifty years ago, is well-known for requiring gender equity in college sports. It goes way beyond that, prohibiting discrimination and harassment on the basis of sex among all students in schools that receive federal funds. Sexual assault is a violent form of discrimination and harassment, and is investigated by the school’s Title IX enforcement office separately from any criminal charges that may be filed.

Many thanks to the survivors of sexual violence whose courage is the inspiration for this work.

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Room 103 Act I

Room 103
– A Title IX Drama –

Room 103 is a stage play set on a contemporary college campus. Warning, what follows involves sexual violence, courage, entitlement, narcissism, and the troubling level of privilege we afford student athletes.

For a cast list, scene summaries, and basic stage instructions, please click here.
All material copyright (c) 2023 by William Walker. Contact at rubycreekboathouse@gmail.com

 

Act I

Scene 1

Room 101 – Barbara Woods’ office, untidy, stacks of papers, cheap furniture: desk, conference table, 8 chairs.

Barbara Woods, preparing for an interview, sits at her desk urgently reviewing papers. If stage allows, could show Nancy Doe waiting next door in Room 103, in shadows.

PAULINA NETTLES (knocks, enters, seems harried):            What are you doing, Barbara? Aren’t you coming?

BARBARA WOODS (baffled):            Coming where?

PN:                  Barbara… softball stadium. There’s a-

BW:                 Oh yeah. Can’t. I’m booked. Got an interview waiting in 103. With another in 105 right after.

PN:                  President Clemons just called. He expects us all there. He’s not gonna be happy.

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Room 103 Act II

Room 103 
– A Title IX Drama –

Room 103 is a stage play set on a contemporary college campus. Warning, what follows involves sexual violence, courage, entitlement, narcissism, and the troubling level of privilege we afford student athletes.

This is Act II. To start at the beginning, please go to Act I here.
For a cast list, scene summaries, and basic stage instructions, please click here.
All material copyright (c) 2023 by William Walker. Contact at rubycreekboathouse@gmail.com

 

ACT II

Scene 1

A week later – August 3
Leaving Room 101

Pop Hughes and Welly Harris, outside Barbara Woods’ office

POP HUGHES (pacing):    Suspended? It’s the first week of August! Three months delay, for this! You’re suspended?

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The crusader you’ve never heard of

“We’re braining our boys and raping our girls.”

That’ll grab your attention at the beginning of a forty-five-minute conversation. Irv Muchnick was asked what drives his passion to report on training deaths in football and sexual abuse in swimming. When you follow Irv’s work, you get used to hard-hitting stuff. But that was an extra level of truth.

Muchnick: Don’t try to hide from this man (Broadsheet)

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