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.

Continue reading “Room 103 Act I”

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?

Continue reading “Room 103 Act II”

Poetry in the Dirt

Wrigley Field

Not many years ago, my late father woke me up at 3AM. He’d been gone nearly a decade by then. But his “Hey! Billy! Write this down!” yanked me from bed, and I ran to the kitchen only to find myself alone, Dad still long dead, and my fingers typing five stanzas he’d dictated to me as I slept.

But I’m no poet.

With that in mind, my daughter – she’s my daughter and my muse – convinced me in 2019 to do this poetry challenge called EscApril. Writers use that happy spring month to crank out 30 poems in 30 days, with a daily prompt to get started. I had silly fun with it, and did it again last year in the second month of lockdown. That made it extra fun.

Then she asked if I planned to do EscApril again this year.

This time I actually challenged myself. This time I decided all 30 poems would relate to themes, characters, and scenes in Diamonds and Dirt. …while using the prompts given by The EscApril People. Whoever they are.

It’s baseball, lies, abuse, revenge… fun stuff. Enjoy responsibly.

https://www.playininthedirt.com/about/poetry-huh/

 

 

This news is too damn real

It was that moment. That surreal moment.

You wake up, take a break in the real world from that novel you’re writing… and the real world creeps right into the novel, or the fiction creeps into the news, or what the hell just happened? 

Amy Carnell comes up on the page. And she comes up on the TV screen. But not for the reason you’d think. The former youth soccer sensation, later an exec with the Sounders and the Seattle Reign, alleges sexual abuse twenty years ago by her youth coach.  


Carnell’s story featured by Hana Kim, Q13
At top: Creeper. (Seattle Times/Amy Carnell)

Continue reading “This news is too damn real”