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A garden that won’t let go, a city that won’t quite receive you, and three sisters who pull up their roots to discover what follows when you leave home. We sit with playwright Zoe Rulin to explore Dirt, a 90-minute, magic-forward play that transforms displacement, loss, and belonging into living theater. Zoe shares how moving from New York back to rural Colorado during the pandemic seeded the image of daughters planted in their mother’s garden and the haunting question: can you ever truly return?

The conversation opens the creative toolbox behind a workshop production. Zoe walks us through securing space support, crowdfunding, and building a world on a budget with designer Vincent Gunn—think clotheslines, fabric, and suggestion over spectacle. With director Tyler Christie and a game cast, rehearsals become a laboratory for dramaturgy, where character logic, pacing, and cause-and-effect get stress-tested in the room. It’s a candid look at how new plays are made: messy drafts, precise notes, and the grind of reworking act two until it sings.

We also travel through Zoe’s evolving body of work. Medusa Prays reframes a familiar myth, putting Medusa and Athena into a sharp, modern reckoning with power and mercy. Six Red Seeds slides Persephone and Hades into a contemporary impact fund, where climate, capital, and consent collide. And Zoe reveals a new full-length in progress that threads Picasso’s relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter through the Minotaur’s shadow, interrogating art, desire, and self-mythology.

If you’ve ever wondered how a script becomes a stage event—or why certain images take root and refuse to leave—this is your front-row seat. Come for the award-winning origin story, stay for the practical writerly advice: set timers, embrace bad first drafts, and get your work into the room. Subscribe, share with a theater-loving friend, and leave a review with the moment that hit you hardest.

Hosted by: Cottman, Crawford & The Jersey Guy
Contact us: CCandNJGuy@gmail.com
Links & socials: https://linktr.ee/ccandnjguy

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A Sunday-brunch start quickly turns intense as we unpack a Pennsylvania case where police found more than 100 human skulls, torsos, and mummified remains in a home and storage unit. We trace the investigation from tips to Instagram follows, then wrestle with motive: is the oddities trade a cover for crime, a magnet for the unwell, or both? The conversation pulls in true‑crime mythmaking, Ed Gein lore, and how the internet’s back alleys make it easier to cross lines that used to feel unthinkable.

From real‑world horror we slide into Hawkins, revisiting the Stranger Things finale with fresh eyes. We celebrate the show’s secret sauce—kids who act like kids, adults who bend but don’t break, and 80s details that feel lived‑in instead of kitschy. Murray’s deadpan heroism, Hopper’s bruised heart, the Wheelers’ quiet backbone, and needle‑drops from Master of Puppets to synth‑soaked pop remind us why this story stuck. Could there be prequels or spin‑offs? Maybe. But sometimes closing the gate is the most satisfying ending of all.

We close with our most personal segment: a heartfelt, at‑home goodbye to a beloved dog, and a candid look at euthanasia and assisted dying. We talk signs of late‑stage decline, how in‑home services protect comfort and pack closure, and why compassion can be an action, not just a feeling. Then we widen the lens to policy and ethics: hospice, autonomy, dignity, and the case for giving terminal patients a humane choice when suffering overwhelms treatment.

If these topics moved you—true crime ethics, Stranger Things’ legacy, or the realities of saying goodbye—share this with a friend, leave a review, and tell us what dignity means to you. Subscribe for more thoughtful dives, and drop your take in the comments so we can feature it next time.

Hosted by: Cottman, Crawford & The Jersey Guy
Contact us: CCandNJGuy@gmail.com
Links & socials: https://linktr.ee/ccandnjguy