The TU Speech Team traveled to the James Madison University/George Mason University Spring Metro Tournaments the weekend of February 21-22, 2004. The competitions are a showcase tournament in preparation for the American Forensics Association?s-National Individual Events Tournament.
Sandra Grone and Kate Jones brought home a third place trophy in Duo Interpretation. Their presentation, ?Profanity in the Workplace,? is one of the most consistently decorated performances this competitive season. They have reached the final round at tournaments up and down the east coast.
The piece focuses on the cubicle climate in corporate America today. Filled with twists and turns of inner office tensions and scheming, the selection makes the audiences at contest roar with laughter. Grone and Jones do justice to the literature in their cutting.
?Grone and Jones blocked the piece in a very cutting edge fashion. The innovations they are utilizing are part of the progression of competitive oral interpretation,? said Darren C. Goins, Director of the TU Speech and Debate Program. ?Oral interpretation in speech contests operates on conventions. The conventions are evolving and it is great to see TU students as part of the avant-garde.?
Lauren Ferretti, a novice on the speech team, distinguished herself this weekend as someone to watch, also. Ferretti placed eight out of the field of 36 interpers. She out-performed students from Cornell, Western Kentucky, California State University Long Beach, Clemson, and Seton Hall.
Ferretti, cut and rehearsed this new oral interpretation of prose over the winter holiday. Sarah Gran?s Saturn?s Return to New York is the story of a woman who is called on to parent her mother who has come down with Graham?s disease. Ferretti?s selection focuses on a dinner conversation between mother and daughter in which the daughter is reminded of the day she found her father?s body in the family home.
?Lauren is exemplary of the new talent on the team. Her artistry and depth of emotions make her someone to watch for the remainder of this season and over the next three years,? Goins said.
