The Story Was Alive

The Story was very much alive at the Performance of Literature held by the Yuba College Speech Team last Friday. Students Sheila Kirn, Kasandra Roberts, Gemma Minetti, Hannah Nielsen, Dejon English, and Professor Tim May performed exciting pieces. They ranged from seriously intense to comical. The team is a very talented group of individuals with a passion for these types of performances. Proceeds of the night went to support the team. The speech team relies solely on this type of support so that they may be able to compete because their budget was eliminated. In a competition in October the team took home three first place medals and one third place. This was no small competition either. These are talented students in need of support.

Kirn performed a piece called, “From Bitter Black Woman To Better Black Woman.” In this piece she broke down how a black woman goes from many struggles, to bitterness, then evolves into this strong, loving, “better” woman like Michelle Obama in the white house. This piece was very gripping, with each role played immensely well. She also did an amazing piece on addiction called, “From Addiction to Recovery,” where she plays out the role of a judgemental woman and the role of the life of an addict.This girl should be on Broadway.

Roberts did a piece called “The Monster,” where she depicted the life of a teen girl who rebels against the idea of her father after him not being in her life for eight years and now having to spend the summer with him. She meets a boy and gets into crank. The story had a very serious message and tone. Roberts also did a lighter piece that was quite enjoyable about bridezillas. The piece was called, “The Road to Marital Bliss.” She quoted Corinthians from the Bible about love being patient and kind, and then went into a bridezilla bitching about her cake. The piece received many laughs.

There were many other wonderful pieces as well. Minetti’s piece was about how a girl comes to faith through the children’s book, Harold and The Purple Crown. It was very clever as she described a religion to where she could just draw a resolution to her problem using this magnificent purple crayon.

Nielsen spoke passionately in her piece about the right to vote and how Americans are not utilizing that right like they should.

English opened eyes about the homeless and how they are judged. In our economy the message was huge.

May read from a comical story that he wrote about a man with a horrific wife, a rat problem, and Dick Chaney shooting his friend in the face. If that doesn’t sound incredibly hilarious, then I don’t know what does. The audience was rolling with laughter through out the whole piece.

Each story took on a life of its own through its performer.