This document is a collection of creative works by students inspired by themes in the novel "Old School" by Tobias Wolff. The pieces explore human growth, self-discovery, and challenges of transitioning to new stages of life. One poem reflects on how readers can experience different lives and emotions through literature. A short story depicts a tense conversation where a girl's behavior frustrates her partner, leading to their breakup for now. The works address universal life lessons of defining oneself and one's values amid difficulties.

1. An exploration of
human connections
and life changes.
Works of growth,
communication, self-
image, and loss. We
all learn as we grow
and sometimes the
process can be
difficult, yet in the face
of those challenges
we earn experiences
that help us to define
who we are.
TRANSITION
A Collection of Original Student Works
A publication of the
Palo Alto Children’s Theatre

2. Cover art photographed by instructor.
Students Meera Bucklin and Bonita Homm work
on a sidewalk chalk mural as part of the “Not In
Our Schools” week, at Gunn High School.
This publication is a production of the
PALO ALTO CHILDREN’S THEATRE
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and the
TEEN ARTS COUNCIL
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in cooperation with the
National Endowment for the Arts
as part of
THE BIG READ program
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April 2014

3. Instructor’s Note:
In early March 2014, as part of a National
Endowment for the Arts program known as the Big
Read, a selection of students from Gunn High
School volunteered to step forward and participate
in a unique workshop experience.
The Big Read program exists to bolster the reading
of literature for recreation and appreciation of the
art form within communities across the United
States. This year’s selection by the Teen Arts Council
of Palo Alto, CA was the novel “Old School” by local
author Tobias Wolff.
The novel follows a young man at an elite boarding
school in New England as he strives to win literary
notoriety among his peers as well as the coveted
prize of a private audience with a famous author. As
his story unfolds we see certain people gain great
importance and influence in his life while others
wither. After an act of academic dishonesty turns his
life on its heels he is forced to refocus and discover
his true self, and his true artistic voice.
The challenge put before the students of Gunn
High School was to read the book and then
develop their own creative responses to the
themes, characters, or ideas that resonated with
them. Apart from being original and personal, these
works would be written with the intention that they
be publicly performed in a visual medium.
This publication is a collection of those works:
Personally inspired, carefully rendered, and drawn
from elements of the student’s own lives. These
stories follow the themes of growth, self-discovery,
self-awareness, and the personal trials that
accompany these transitions from one stage of life
to the next.
My sincere thanks to all the participants.
-Daniel Joyce
1

4. Students Hart Rosenburg and Ryeri Lim work on the
staging for the work “Time to Stop That Now”
2

5. 6:30 a.m. is a curious time. It’s not at all like the books say, and the
movies rarely show this as but a rapid introductory sequence. A whistling
prelude that establishes the importance of the day.
But the people I see are not bleary-eyed or bustling; they linger in soft blue
chairs, all only mildly asleep, as if their dimming notches have been pulled quietly
down. I see more wide eyes than pale eyelids; and far more people are connected
or plugged in elsewhere. Right now, make no mistake, I too am plugged in. It is not
somehow more wholesome to communicate to the future through ink than it is to do
so in the present with futuristic fingers.
It’s quiet under the sea.
INTERLUDE: I hate the fact that I’m drinking right now what is probably blood
coffee and writing with ink that may have poisoned the skin of children without
options and that I’m checking the time––6:36––on a machine assembled by
honorary machines who are also called people sometimes. I am wretched, and
I so want to tear the clothes from my back with sore fingers that share the
stinging pain of thousands of underpaid women. My entire existence is so
rotten and I do not want to rot with the mildly asleep fishes.
6:41. The sun is young and cold. It shivers and stretches over my page.
NOTE: An interlude is a measure of time during which background music––the themesetter, the
moodmaker––comes into the primary spotlight.
3

6. Poetry In Motion
by Alyssa See-Tho
As a reader, we live many lives
We fall, we love, we take, and we let go
We aspire, inspire, and ultimately…live
Who’s to say we were not what they were?
!
As a reader, we think many thoughts
We question and praise and rumble and craze,
Our thoughts share and combine with the characters like wind slicing
through fields of wonder
We settle and sigh
Who’s to say we are not what they are?
!
As a reader, we feel many things
Love, loss, hope and pain
Laughter and that radiance that flies off of another and enters your
heart, tying, connecting, feeling
We soon all become one and yet we are all each our own
Who’s to say we will not be what they will?
!
As a person, we are
We breathe, we feel, we laugh, we love, and most of all,
We live
We live our own story,
THIS chance, THIS life, and it is all ours
We sing with our voices: the voices in our heads, the voices in our
hearts, the ways of life, beliefs and values around which our being
revolves
We make not a sound and yet the pulse of the earth moves with us, our
songs and our hopes, our mistakes and second chances, our echoes
We dream
We don’t just have one or two or three or four
They live and breathe beside us
If our flame goes out, so will its flame
If you have a dream
And I have a dream
Who’s someone else to say we can’t achieve it?
4

7. Author’s Note: When we read, we experience so many different things and, because of this,
often feel as though the life we have in reality is so limited and we feel so trapped. Who says that
real life and the lives that characters live are so different? We can bring what we feel and
experience in stories to our own lives now, learning from characters and the story itself. Be
inspired by what you read, not discouraged! We have THIS life, OUR story and it is time to turn
the page and achieve OUR dream.
-Alyssa See-Tho
5

8. Annoyed, I wandered out.
I’d already examined them, but my fingers went again to the
two candelabras to each side of the restaurant’s entrance. They
reached my shoulders in height; they were dark rough metal, the kind you
would never scratch your fingernails against. Each supported about forty slim white
candles, some bright and half not, scentless. Wax linger-drops hung down in what
seemed to imply neglect, until I got close––and saw that the metal candelabras stood on
stone mounts absolutely painted in candle essence, completely dripped over in opalescent
tongues and tails. They were stunning because they were authentic, and because they were
manifests of passed time.
A blond woman stood by the candelabras. The wrinkles around her eyes indicated both
laughter and loss, or perhaps I only recognized them as such after she told me so. For she was
checking the wick of each unlit candle, and then she was holding out a match and saying,
“Would you like to light one?”
The woman, who’d found a satisfactory wick, lit a candle herself. She looked at me––not
straight on, somehow––and said, “It’s for someone you’ve lost.”
A gray-haired man came up behind her, touched her shoulder, asked a question I do not
remember.
But I recall she smiled so brightly, so soulfully at him that my mind translates it into a
laugh. She said it again: “It’s for someone you’ve lost.
When she added, “It comes from an old Catholic tradition,” I immediately travelled back
to a Catholic church I’d visited in Quebec, and a thought I’d entertained that morning travelled
back to me, that is, why do people choose to restrict themselves, choose binding small-
confining regimes, rulebooks, lifestyles, is it so their souls are not dropped into Chaos, is it so
that they remember to value hope, is it so there are expectations and boundaries to surpass, to
outdistance, to win. I worship because within me there is a well both overflowing and
parched.
I took the match and I lit a candle for the one I almost lost. The woman had moved
past me by the time I had a light going.
“Thank you,” I said to her back.
“You’re welcome,” she replied, not looking round, moving
away.
6

9. Time to Stop That Now
by Hart Rosenburg
Setting: (JORDAN stands alone in the center of
a circle of light, checking the texts on her
phone. A bench and column are nearby,
perhaps they manage to look like part of a
school quad. The NARRATOR stands directly
behind her, and will follow her around the stage
keeping a few feet of distance between they
and JORDAN. JORDAN is wearing a short blue
skirt and blue top, the NARRATOR wears similar
pieces, but in a nondescript grey. The sounds of
a bustling school quad filter in.)
!
NARRATOR: For the first time in over a week we
finally make plans to meet at the usual place. I’d
been texting you but for some reason you kept
saying you were busy. Yeah, that makes sense.
You’re going off to college soon. Of course
that’s why, nothings wrong.
!
STUDENT: (enters from SRC and stands near the
edge of the light.) Hey, How are you?
!
(JORDAN doesn’t answer. She is lost in her own
thoughts. STUDENT shrugs and exits back the
way they came.)
!
NARRATOR: I’m fine there’s nothing wrong. It’s
going to be fine. Are you angry with me? You
must be, after what I did...yes, she has to be. I
was bad. I did bad, I deserve to be punished.
Whatever comes my way, I have to sit and take
it. (Puts away phone and crosses arms.) I have to
receive punishment. Maybe then I’ll finally be
able to forgive myself. Will we be able to move
past it, how am I supposed to know? I love her I
love her and I’m grateful for this extra time with
her, isn’t that enough?
!
(TAYLOR enters from USR, heads C towards
JORDAN. JORDAN looks up and smiles. Her
spotlight expands, the two hug. They break
away and smile.)
NARRATOR: We meet with smiles in the usual
place, you grabbing my hand, or did you? I
don’t know, I don’t know anymore. But you
either led or we automatically followed each
other to a place not far away. A spot with no
memories. I’m sure you smiled at me, you must
have.
!
(The girls sit down on the bench. JORDAN sits
stiffly, shoulders hunched, with her palms on
either side of her hips, allowing more weight to
fall there. TAYLOR crosses her legs and places
hands in lap.)
!
NARRATOR: Your hair flutters and I shiver.
JORDAN: So what’s up?
NARRATOR: A dead weight in my center, I know
I know this is not good. Don’t ask how.
(JORDAN looks over at NARRATOR, as if they
are having a conversation. Looks back at
TAYLOR) It’s in the impish set of your lips mixed
with cold eyes that refuse to focus on mine,
looking without really seeing. I am starting to
sweat inside my sweater while the tops of my
thighs, bare because of the skirt now burn.
TAYLOR: We need to talk. (Her voice is a bizarre
jaunty deadpan)
NARRATOR: Inside my chest those stones are
back, the ones that never really disappear,
swelling to gargantuan proportions. Don’t want
to hear, don’t want to listen, but everything
7

10. suddenly feels empty in anticipation. (JORDAN
hunches over, tucks head in. TAYLOR leans
forward.)
TAYLOR: Look, sometimes the way you act just
really gets to me. Like with Frida, what was up
with that? Why are you such a recluse? (TAYLOR
is calm, cool and collected.)
JORDAN: I...I don’t mean to be. (Pause) I
mean...it’s just...hard sometimes, you know?
(Hesitantly reaches out hands.)
NARRATOR: I am slow and broken, trying to
explain to you but somehow nothing really gets
through this tongue of mine.
JORDAN: So what am I supposed to do? I
should change?
TAYLOR: No, no Jord, that’s not what I mean.
You are really great. It’s just right now I can’t
handle it.
!
(Pause. TAYLOR pulls JORDAN into a hug.
JORDAN breathes deeply. They hold on for a
few seconds and then break away, smiling.)
!
NARRATOR: We meander to the first topic of
your grievances with what I do. (Resume
previous sitting positions.) For how long we stay
there on that bench spinning in that circle I
don’t know. Long enough to feel paranoid over
sunburn, to watch the shadows of the tree
stretch to my feet. Black shoes meet black
ground. That look you’d given me weeks ago
comes to mind. Annoyance and disgust in your
features, I’d felt like a broken toy. (JORDAN
alternately swirls her feet on the ground.) The
tanbark rustles and crunches along with the
swirling motions of my feet.
JORDAN: Where do we go from here?
(The girls stand and TAYLOR exits. The circle of
light contracts again.)
!
NARRATOR:The two of us part smiling. The next
day in school you only wave. Don’t look at me
in the hallways. Why? Why is there worms and
mud in my stomach? (JORDAN hunches over,
stares off at the ground. Pushes a fist to her
mouth.) Keep my head level, don’t draw
attention. I am a stone. Don’t talk to people,
that’s bad. At brunch one day I collapse where
we eat, you’re only ten maybe twenty feet away.
(JORDAN collapses into the column, remaining
upright with an effort.) Don’t even glance my
way. I stay there for god knows how long in that
cold shadow of the cement column, heart
thudding about a foot lower than normal.
Eventually I have to run away when a boy asks
me if I’m alright.
STUDENT: (enters pool of light and cautiously
approaches.) Are you okay?
!
(JORDAN looks up at STUDENT and runs off SL.
STUDENT stares after her before exiting SR.)
!
NARRATOR. I can’t take it. Later I go and
apologize to him.
JORDAN: (re-enters and stands in the center of
the light.) Really, it was too kind of him.
!
NARRATOR: After maybe a week I have to go
up to you and ask. I need some clarification.
Walking up to you is hard, my legs tremble and
hardly feel a part of my body. There is a hyper
awareness my every molecule, from the creases
in my shirt to the hairs on my neck. As usual you
are in the center of things.
!
(TAYLOR enters from USL and the light expands
to accommodate her. The girls face each other:
JORDAN is stiff and defensive, TAYLOR relaxed.)
!
JORDAN: Can we talk?
NARRATOR: (Standing directly behind
JORDAN.) I guess that was my voice.
TAYLOR: Sure.
!
(A pause.)
!
JORDAN: Are we broken up?
NARRATOR: You have a tiny smile on your face
8

11. that I’m unable to read. Tilting your head the
answer is…
TAYLOR: For now. Do you think you’ll want to
become friends again after a while?
!
(A longer pause.)
!
JORDAN: I think I’m done with friends for now.
(TAYLOR nods, turns, and exits. Light remains
open. JORDAN crouches and puts head in
hands. NARRATOR walks around behind her,
throwing a fit.)
NARRATOR: (Angrily) That’s it. I’m done, I’m
TOGETHER: DONE (Loudly)
NARRATOR: I say. I’m sick of this
JORDAN: why does this always happen?
NARRATOR: what is WRONG with me already?
No, stop.
TOGETHER: Stop!
NARRATOR: I refuse to change anymore for
people. I won’t
JORDAN: I won’t
TOGETHER: I won’t. Screw acceptance. I don’t
need that I don’t need anyone I tell you. Leave
me alone already, I need to sulk for a while.
!
(NARRATOR X’s USL and exits.
VOICE OFF STAGE: Inventory: two legs, two
arms, two eyes. Physically able and mentally
stable. (JORDAN lifts her head up and looks at
the ceiling.)
NARRATOR: (approaches JORDAN at C and
tugs at her arm.) Hey, hey you. It’s time to stop
that now. Let’s go play.
!
(The two walk DSC, jump off and walk up the
aisle holding hands)
9

12. The departing portals in Mexico are much less peopled, even at three in the afternoon,
but somehow still more harried. The attendants processing us are just as beautiful as their
American counterparts––perhaps more so, or perhaps in the last half-week I have acclimated to
their creasy skin, set serious jaws, comb-marked hair, and steady eyes. Yet I stare and struggle to
find one similarity.
It becomes even more wondrous how an individual holds a grudge against many, for
their singularities.
Then again, it’s difficult to forget the mad evil of some natures. I spoke to three Marcos
on this trip, and only one of them offered to kiss me.
10

13. Where You’ve Been
by Katherine Shark
Day 1, 128 lbs.
I watch you across the class as you speak to a girl. She looks lovely next to you, all long slender legs
and fragile bones and glossy hair. You were smiling at her just the way I wished you’d smile at me, as
if she was the most important, interesting person in the room, as if there was no one else you’d
rather be with. She laughs, and I can see her thin stomach and tiny hands.
My hands on the desk look like an apes’, my legs are short and chunky, my stomach pudgy. I look
grotesque. I throw away my lunch.
!
Day 30, 116 lbs.
I’ve a habit now. I count the calories of everything I eat, over and over. I weigh myself daily. 116 lbs.
100 calorie apple. 0 calorie coffee. 116 lbs. 100 calorie apple. 0 calorie coffee.
You made a joke about the people in your english class, and I thought you were the most beautiful
boy I’d seen when you laughed. I’d always loved green eyes, but now yours are my favorite color, the
color of the grey-blue sea at the edges.
!
Day 62, 110 lbs.
My friend told me that I’d lost a lot of weight recently. My father told me I looked like death warmed
over. Another boy told me I looked skinny. “Really?” I said. “Oh, not in a bad way,” he added hastily.
You didn’t say anything.
I check myself in every mirror I see, the span of my thighs (oh god, they touch) the fat over my
stomach, the way my ribs barely show when I stretch. I compare myself to every girl I see. Do her
thighs touch? Do her collarbones show? How slender is her waist? Do you look at her and think she’s
prettier than me?
I don’t eat breakfast and I don’t eat lunch. Hot black coffee hits my stomach like a knife, like
swallowing jet fuel, gasoline that bursts into flame when you talk to me, smile at me. You set me afire
even when you’re not there, as I run over your words, your face. I can hear your voice, your laugh, see
you push back your hair, smiling like the sun on earth.
Curling up into a ball helps alleviate the hunger, and I pretend that dreaming of you is better than
food.
“Attack” photographed by Ryeri Lim
11

14. Day 85, 105 lbs.
I eat a few bites of dinner when I’m forced too. I went three days without eating and only lost a
pound. Why am I not losing weight? The mirror and the scales taunt me, I am still just as fat as I
always was. You must be disgusted with me. I despise my body, I despise myself.
But I love you, the light you gain when you talk of soccer or running or the ranch in Colorado where
you go every year, the way you glow with passion and life. I could listen to you forever, try to know
you inside and out. I want to know more, I want to learn everything about you.
I wonder if you light up like that when someone mentions me, if you think about me when I’m not
there.
!
Day 150, 99.1 lbs.
The only thing more joyous than seeing this number on the scale is you.
I almost fainted walking up the stairs to math with you, I couldn’t make it up the whole flight
without stopping from exhaustion, I paused and suddenly the world spun and I was on the
ground, I felt my eyes roll back and your hand on my shoulder, “Are you ok?! Do you need to
go to the nurse?!”. I’d faint a thousand times over if it meant that you’d put your hand on me
like that again, delicately, like I’d break, as if I was some precious, fragile thing.
!
Day 187, 101 lbs.
They took me to the hospital. “Anorexia,” they say.
“You’re going to die if you don’t stop. Your heart will
fail, your bones are weak, you are deteriorating. Eat.”
No, they don’t understand. This is my friend, it will save
me, it will bring me happiness, if I get a little thinner,
maybe then I can be your girl, your angel, light, small,
thin, skinny, perfect. I’ll be happy. Food will make me
fat, food is scary, food is the enemy.
I am hooked up to a heart monitor, and they won’t
let me out of bed. The monitor is placed just
below my collarbone, where you’d
touched me once, but it’s a cold piece of
plastic that smells of medical adhesive,
not your warm, smooth hand. It doesn’t
compare.
“Recovery” Photographed by Ryeri Lim
12

15. Day 188, x lbs.
There are no scales here.
I remember when I said my hands were cold and you looked at them. “Let me see,” you said,
and I put out my hands hesitantly. You held then gently, as if you were about to kiss the
scarred knuckles and translucent skin. “Fuck, they’re freezing!” you exclaimed, then let them
go, but I never forgot the soft, dry touch of your fingers on mine.
The doctor held my hands the same way, his short fingers damp from hand sanitizer. He
checked for circulation and did the same to my feet. I wish you’d hold my hands again, I wish
you’d hold me.
I am scared. I want to get out of here.
!
Day 189, x lbs.
I think of you, of your scent, like almond milk but sweeter. I am so attuned to you, I can always
tell when it’s you by the scent, without even opening my eyes. The hospital smells of
antiseptic and Purell and the food they keep giving me. They say I need to gain weight, that I
need more food to repair my heart. Nothing can fix my heart. It isn’t even broken the way they
say it is, it’s not weak from starvation, it’s cracked by love. I love you and they say I was dying.
It did not feel like dying, it felt like needles in my heart and razors in my stomach and coffee
on the back of my tongue.
Day 189, x lbs.
A friend visited. She said that you asked where I was, that you were “surprised” when she told
you I was in the hospital. I spend all day trying to visualize your face.
!
Day 190, x lbs.
They gave me an orange to eat, and I peeled it slowly, remembering how you peeled it all in
a single spiral and pretended the peel was a slinky, how you rubbed it against my cheek and
laughed at me. “It’s perfume!”. I spend all my time remembering every moment with you,
running them through my mind and making a map of every place you’d touched me, every
subject we’d talked about, thinking, he was here and here and here and here.
!
Day 194, x lbs.
They released me today with a packet of instructions for my parents on how to supervise my
eating. “Lots of food,” the doctors said. “To help her body heal.” They don’t say how to help
my mind heal.
The doctor pats me on the head and smiles. “I’m glad you came here.” he said. “You could
have died. You’re worth more than that. Good luck.” I never realized his eyes are the same
color as yours, except his eyes look at me and see potential and value. Your eyes don’t see
me at all.
!
Day 195, x lbs.
I texted you, saying I was home from the hospital. You sent me an email- “I hope you’re
feeling better. I miss you”. I look up “miss” in the dictionary, to be sure I didn’t misinterpret
your meaning. I read it five times, just to be sure.
Part of me wants to keep the email and memorize it, but I resist and delete it.
13

16. Day 205, 117 lbs.
They told me my weight and I cried and cried. I’m drowning in self-hatred, god, how could I
be so pathetic and greedy? You once told me a woman should never eat as much as a man.
You’d been joking, but I’d believed you. I think how I had eaten up every word you said.
I had been so starved for your love I devoured every crumb of attention you gave me, even
the poisonous ones; I savored even the smallest of your smiles and glances, hoping they
could sustain me.
Eventually I take a deep breath. The next meal is tough, but I make it through.
!
Day 220, 120 lbs.
I’m back at school and the sky is blue, blue, blue. I can’t quite remember the color of your
eyes, but I don’t mind. The sky is far prettier.
!
Day 223, 122 lbs.
My thighs touch at the top again, and I am beginning to get used to the feel of them
brushing each other as I walk. I no longer want to cry over it.
My friend held my hands to attach a bracelet today. I didn’t think of you when she touched
them, though. I thought instead of the things I can make with my hands, art and music and
beauty and life. They are no longer my clumsy old ape fingers or my weak thin tendons,
they’re smooth and graceful and powerful. They are strong now.
!
Day 230, 125 lbs.
You spoke to a slim, slender girl today. I ignored it and looked back down at my math
problems.
I’m not better yet, not by a long shot. But I’ve let go of you, and that’s a start.
“Riches” photographed by Ryeri Lim
14

17. Takeoff:
Like making a decision, the ground is beneath me and then it is not.
The plane tilts and levels and suddenly we are the lights that we have
accidentally wished on, or the sight that children point out in the schoolyard,
and everyone always looks.
Earth as I knew it dissolves into cloud, and the man sitting next to me
(in the aisle seat) catches himself straining to stare out the window in wonder.
7:21 a.m. The sun is shy again.
Everyone always looks.
2
2
15

18. Credits and Thanks
All Transition pieces
by Ryeri Lim
!
Additional photos and layout:
Daniel Joyce
!
Workshop facilitator:
Daniel Joyce
!
Palo Alto Children’s Theatre Staff
!
Theatre Intern: Rebecca Krieger
Production Assistants: Wyatt Alvis, Cory Hall,
Spencer Orbegozo
Technical Director: David Gotlieb
Production Manager: Lane Pianta
Assistant Production Manager: Nora Kaminsky
Box Office Manager: Richard Curtis
Costume Supervisor: Jennifer Gonsalves
Director of Education: Christopher Luciani
Coordinator of Theatre Operations:
Marieke Gaboury
Artistic Director: Judge Luckey
Thanks to all the workshop participants:
Alexandra Estrade
Nia Gardner
Ryeri Lim
Jessica Luo
Hart Rosenberg
Alyssa See-Tho
Katherine Shark
Sivan Spector
!
Special Thanks to:
Lane Pianta
Tarn Wilson
and Jim Shelby
!
as well as:
Tobias Wolff
William H. Gunn High School
The Palo Alto Teen Arts Council
The Palo Alto Children’s Theatre
The Big Read Program
and the National Endowment for the Arts
16

19. “What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts
on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside
the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the
millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing
is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew
each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof
that humans are capable of working magic.”
- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
17