Off the Page Archive
Word for Word's Off the Page staged reading series has been our testing ground for new material. Here is an admittedly partial archive of stories that have been performed.
2015
January 25 - “Two Women” by Colm Tóibín
Directed by Jim Cave
From the short story collection The Empty Family.
May 19 - "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
Directed by Paul Finocchiaro
June 22 - “Property” by Elizabeth McCracken
Directed by Amy Kossow
Best American Short Stories of 2011. A young scholar, grieving a sudden loss, decides to refurbish his Maine rental house by eliminating his landlord’s 1960’s underground possessions. In Elizabeth McCracken’s universe heartache is always interwoven with strange, charmed moments of joy. From her collection Thunderstruck and Other Stories.
July 13 - “The Appropriation of Cultures” by Percival Everett & "Bible" by Tobias Wolff
Directed by Rami Magron
August 10 - “Marie Curie, So Honorable Woman” by Lydia Davis
Directed by Stephanie Hunt
At the border of parody and translation, “Marie Curie, So Honorable Woman”, came about as Davis was translating a biography of Marie Curie. Composed of sentences “…so sentimental and nonsensical that they were,” she says, “too good to waste.” She was interested “in the idea that a story written very badly could also be very moving.”
September 21 - “Reeling for the Empire” by Karen Russell
Directed by JoAnne Winter
Part Kafka and part Karl Marx, “Reeling for the Empire” is a haunting allegory of regret. Set in the late 1800’s in a Japanese silk factory, we discover, along with the girls working there, that they have been tricked into becoming human silk worms for Emperor Meiji. From Russell’s collection Vampires in the Lemon Grove.
“…otherworldly, yet emotionally devastating; so daffy and daring…”
—Maureen Corrigan, NPR
October 8 - “Night Vision” by Emma Donoghue
Directed by Becca Wolff, Word for Word Associate Artist
1824 Donegal: A 9 year old blind girl, fights for her right to an education. She later becomes known as Frances Browne, the “Blind Poetess of Donegal” and a successful London novelist.
October 18 - “The Long Way Home” by Emma Donoghue
Directed by Becca Wolff
2014
February 10 - "All Aunt Hagar's Children" by Edward P. Jones
Directed by Stephanie Hunt
Performed at JCCSF
A detective story, a neighborhood story, and a story of a circle of women and their endurance, by Pulitzer Prize winner (The Known World) Edward P. Jones.
July 28 - “Fiction” by Alice Munro
Directed by Delia MacDougall
In this astounding story we find Joyce, a young music teacher, and Jon, her furniture maker husband. Seemingly content with each other and impassioned by their work, they turn an unexpected bend in their lives that unravels everything. Munro's masterful storytelling leads us through surprising twists and turns into the maturity of Joyce's life, some dramatic changes of perspective, and a revelatory and unforeseen conclusion.
September 15 - “The Office" and "Dolly" by Alice Munro
Directed by Joel Mullennix
Two short stories this Nobel Prize winner: the writer in "The Office" is convinced that an office of one's own is what she needs to be a real writer--but her landlord keeps oozing into her life with his increasing malevolence; in "Dolly", our protagonist is confident that she and her husband have the enduring love of late life--until Franklin's old flame, Gwen, pops up. From Munro's first short story collection to her most recent, these two stories showcase the irony, humor, and surprise found in Munro's heroines. "The Office" (from Dance of the Happy Shades) and "Dolly" (from Dear Life).
October 13 - “Free Radicals” by Alice Munro
Performed at Noh Space
In this story we find Nita, who misses her husband and is tired of the ministrations of her well-meaning friends, when a sudden visit tests her mettle.
November 4 - “Silence” and “A Song” by Colm Tóibín
Directed by Jim Cave
December 8 - “Saint Marie” by Louise Erdrich
Directed by Sheila Balter
“Saint Marie” tells a dark tale of Marie, a fourteen-year-old half-Native American girl who, with conflicted intentions, enters a local convent and grapples with Sister Leopolda for her faith and her future. From the novel Love Medicine.
2013
January 14 - “Don’t Eat Cat” by Jess Walter
Directed by Nancy Shelby
Performed at the San Francisco Public Library Main Building
