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This episode we’re featuring a pair of stories from our LOCK & KEY show.

In our first story, author Stella Kaufman has devised a coping mechanism for dealing with the sleights, pain, and humiliation life can deal out. It’s a story of how we negotiate memory, especially in our current internet age – who we share with, and how, and what we keep private.

Here’s Stella Kaufman’s “The Vault” as performed by Richard Lovejoy.

lock and key

Switching it up, “The Locked Door Puzzle” confronts a childhood home dominated by a narcissistic mother, where refuge comes in the world of computer games.

It’s a story of how something viewed as childish might actually provided the tools to negotiate self-hood and the adult world – how to solve the riddle of our families, and perhaps free ourselves from the dungeons of the past. Here’s Stella Kaufman with Richard Lovejoy’s “The Locked Door Puzzle.”

 

These stories were performed live on February 17th, 2014 at Jimmy’s No. 43. Here are the storytellers bios from that evening:

Stella Kaufman is honored to be working with the inspiring creative team and the talented writers at NYTI! Stella’s first book, Lots of People We Need, was written circa 1964, on laundry shirt cardboards from her dad’s uniforms. Stella has wanted to be a writer ever since. In order to keep her bulldog in dog treats and argyle sweaters, Stella is presently employed as a proposal writer. Past occupations include elementary school teacher and a brief stint as a clown. After a nearly three decades of taking the scenic route, she is making a return to the creative written form. Stella does freelance blogging and editing, and is a regular contributor to markfisherfitness.com.

Stella is currently working on a non-fiction book and an accidental collection of poetry. Stella’s goal is to become living proof of the George Eliot quote: “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

Story: The Vault

Richard Lovejoy is a Brooklyn-based writer and actor. He wrote and starred in the feature film The Widowers (www.the-widowers.com), a comedy about grief set to premiere in 2014. He has been featured in All My Children, We Cause Scenes, Rising Up: The Story of the Zombie Right’s Movement, and numerous shorts. On stage, Richard has recently been seen in The Dark Heart of Meteorology by Stephen Aubrey, Eric Meyer’s The Scavengers, and Willy Nilly by Trav SD. He also wrote and appeared in A Brief History of Murder and Adventure Quest, which helped spark a movement of video game based theater.

He was the head writer for BrainExplode! Richard is a 2009 NYTheater.com Person of the Year.  He is the Creative Director of Charred Oak Films (www.charredoakfilms.com).

Story: The Locked Door Puzzle