in a word

By Lauren Yee
Actors Packet
Holly Dennis, Dramaturg
hdennis@andrew.cmu.edu
(856)-577-9115

Aspergers Syndrome
What is it like to be a parent of a child with Aspergers? by Jean Marion, The Slate
Group
This is a blog post written by a mother of a son with Aspergers. She reflects on the
struggles of raising him before he was diagnosed. This blog post gives insight into
specific situations that the parents had to deal with potty training, doctors visits,
preparing him for any social situations. This blog post also gives insight into the specific
behaviors a child with Aspergers exhibits (the section that starts with The doctor asked
us a series of questions). A child with Aspergers may suffer from unusual fears, may not
have many friends, may find it difficult to act appropriately in a large group of people,
may often repeat himself. The diagnosis section lists many other symptoms of a child
with Aspergers.
The parenting perspective will be important for Fiona and Guy, while the description of
symptoms and ways children with Aspergers act will be important for Tristan.
Other resources:
8 tips for Parents of Kids with Aspergers Syndrome
Symptoms of Asperger Syndrome and Parenting Strategies

Storytelling
Why Storytelling is the Ultimate Weapon by Jonathan Gottschall, Fast Company & Inc
This article is about being emotionally engaged in storytelling and how people are more
willing to believe information when told as a story than when told in a presentational
setting: When we read dry, factual arguments, we are critical and skeptical. But when we
are absorbed in a story we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally and this
seems to leave us defenseless.
This information relates to how people (and the audience) respond to how Fiona and Guy
tell their stories. People may be more willing to believe Fionas stories even if theyre
inconsistent because they appeal to our emotions.
Telling a Story or Telling it Straight: The Effects of Entertaining Versus Accurate
Retellings on Memory by Nicole M. Dudukovic, Elizabeth J. Marsh, and Barbara
Tversky, Wiley InterScience
This is a cognitive psychological research study. Its goal is to answer the questions: What
characterizes retellings from different perspectives? How does retelling perspective affect
later recall of events? The researchers discovered that people alter the stories they tell
depending on their audience and their communication goals. These communication
goals were to either tell an accurate story, or to tell an entertaining story. Depending on
the goal of the storyteller, the way they told the story changed.
These two goals can connect to Fionas storytelling. At what times is she telling the story
for accuracy? At what times is she telling the story to be entertaining or connect with
someone on a more emotional level?
Other resources:
The Science of Storytelling: What Listening to a Story Does to our Brains by
Leo Widrich

Missing Children
For parents of missing children, years pass but hope persists by Mara Rose Williams,
The Kansas City Star
This article is a report on parents with missing children. It provides a personal
perspective directly from parents who are dealing with this struggle. The most important
perspective from this article is the idea that many parents never give up hope in looking
for their lost child because there are always stories about children being found 10 or 20
years later. The National Center for Mission and Exploited Children never close a case
until the answers are uncovered or the child is found.
This article provides perspective from people dealing with the same struggle as Fiona and
Guy. It gives insight into how parents perspectives change over time, from the day their
child goes missing, to many years after.
When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide U.S Department of Justice
This is a guide written by the U.S. Department of Justice with families of missing
children meant to help other families and law enforcement to quickly find a missing child
during a chaotic time. It provides information on everything ranging from talking to the
media, to dealing with finances, to staying mentally and emotionally strong.
This is a handbook that Guy and Fiona may have been given to help them deal with the
situation.
Other resources:
48 Hours: Never giving up on missing kids by Pat Sessions, CBS News

Memory
Your Memory is like the Telephone Game by Marla Paul, Northwestern University
Research
This article discusses how our memories are not static; they are always changing.
Memories become altered with each retelling. Sometimes when you recall a memory, you
are not recalling the memory of the actual event, but rather, youre recalling the memory
of the last time you told the memory. Also, memories can be affected by the context in
which theyre told: If you remember something in the context of a new environment and
time, or if you are even in a different mood, your memories might integrate the new
information.
This information allows us to be more sympathetic to Fiona and her distorted storytelling.
Her memories are naturally affected in this way so she may not realize what shes saying
isnt the exact fact of the event as it happened.
Brian Williams and the false memory phenomenon by Jessica Firger, CBS News
This article discusses the idea of a false memory. A false memory occurs when a person
comes to believe something happened that didnt; they may have adopted an account they
heard or made up, perhaps based on details that are distorted and loosely based on the
truthfalse memories may essentially be an effort to externalize the image of ones self
that a person wishes to project out in the world.
Fiona may have experienced a false memory. False memory can subconsciously slide
into a persons psyche until it becomes their version of the truth.

Trees
Here Ive summarized a variety of tree myths. Most of these myths deal with people
being turned into trees. Ive categorized these myths into people turning into trees as a
reward, people turning into trees as a punishment, and people turning into trees as a
relief.
Reward
Baucis and Philemon (Greek/Roman)
o Zeus and Hermes came disguised as ordinary peasants, and began asking
the people of the town for a place to sleep that night. Everyone rejected
them until they came to Baucis and Philemon's simple rustic cottage.
Though the couple were poor, they were generous. After serving the two
guests food and wine, Baucis noticed that, although she had refilled her
guest's cups many times, the pitcher was still full. This caused her to
realize her guests were gods. Zeus told them that they should leave the
town because he was going to destroy the town and all those who had
turned them away and not provided due hospitality. He told Baucis and
Philemon to climb the mountain with him and Hermes, not to turn back
until they reached the top. After climbing to the summit, Baucis and
Philemon looked back on their town and saw that it had been destroyed by
a flood and that Zeus had turned their cottage into an ornate temple. Zeus
granted the couple's wish to be guardians of the temple. They also asked
that when time came for one of them to die, that the other would die as
well. Upon their death, the couple was changed into an intertwining pair of
trees, one oak and one linden, standing in the deserted boggy terrain.
Punishment
Heliades (Greek)
o The Heliades brother, Phathon, died after attempting to drive his father's
chariot across the sky. He was unable to control the horses and fell to his
death. The Heliades grieved for four months and the gods turned them into
poplar trees and their tears into amber. According to Hyginus, the Heliades
were turned to poplar trees because they hitched the chariot for their
brother without their father Helios' permission.
Egle the Queen of the Serpents (Lithuanian)
o A young girl Egl was bathing with her two sisters and discovered a
serpent in her clothes. The serpent speaks to her and agrees to go away
only after Egl pledges herself to him. Three days passed, thousands of
serpents come for the bride, but are tricked by her relatives three times in a
row. Enraged serpents return the final time and take Egl with them to the
bottom of the sea to their master. At the bottom of the sea, Egl meets her
bridegroom ilvinas, a handsome human, the Serpent Prince. They live
together happily and bear four children, until Egl decides to visit home
and her husband denies it. In order to be allowed to visit home, Egl is
required to fulfill three impossible tasks: to spin a never-ending tuft of

silk, wear down a pair of iron shoes and to bake a pie with no utensils.
After she gets advice from the sorceress and fulfills these tasks, Egl and
the children are reluctantly let go by ilvinas. After meeting the long lost
family members, Egl's relatives do not wish to let them back to the sea
and decide to kill ilvinas. Egl's brothers threaten and beat ilvinass
sons to get them tell the secret calling of their father. The boys remain
silent and do not betray their father. Finally, ilvinass daughter tells them
the calling. The twelve brothers call ilvinas the Serpent from the sea and
kill. When Egl discovers that her beloved is dead, as a punishment for
betrayal she turns her children and herself into trees. The sons were turned
into strong trees, an oak, ash and birch, whereas the daughter was turned
into a weeping willow. Egl transformed herself into a spruce.
Relief/Escape
Daphne (Greek)
o The myth of Apollo and Daphne has been examined as a battle between
chastity (Daphne) and sexual desires (Apollo). As Apollo lustfully pursues
Daphne, she is saved through her metamorphosis and confinement into the
laurel tree which can be seen as an act of eternal chastity. Daphne is forced
to sacrifice her body and become the laurel tree as her only form of escape
from the pressures of Apollos constant sexual desires.
Lotis (Greek)
o In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the nymph Lotis was the beautiful daughter of
Neptune, the god of water and the sea. In order to flee the violent attention
of Priapus, she invoked the assistance of the gods, who answered her
prayers by turning her into a lotus tree.
Other
Jubokko (Japanese)
o Thes Jubokko tree appears in battlefields where many have died. When a
human being happens to be passing by, the Jubokko tree captures the
victim and, changing its branches into the shape of a tube, sucks the blood
out of the victim. The Jubokko that sucks life out of human beings in such
way always maintains a fresh appearance. When a Jubokko is cut, blood
trickles out. It is said that a Jubokko branch could heal and decontaminate
an injured person