Clintonian among six winners in short play competition
Special to The Clinton Courier
We Didn’t Have To Meet Here
by Pace Rundlett
Four strangers meet in an unfamiliar place with absolutely nothing in common… except for the fact that they’re dead. And before they can move on, they need to understand why. A moving portrait of the stories behind the statistics in an all-American epidemic.
Pace Rundlett
Pace Rundlett, a teen playwright from Clinton and a junior at Clinton High School, was recently named one of six national winners in ENOUGH!’s short-play competition.
Created in 2019 by Michael Cotey, ENOUGH! calls on teens to confront gun violence by creating new works of theatre that will spark critical conversations and inspire meaningful action in communities across the country.
Rundlett’s play, We Didn’t Have to Meet Here, highlights the variety of human stories behind the statistics of gun violence in America.
This year’s winning plays will debut on October 6, 2025, with a flagship performance at a to-be-announced venue, serving as the cornerstone of a nationwide evening of readings staged coast-to-coast.
ENOUGH! received 127 submissions from twenty-eight states this past spring when it called on teens to write ten-minute plays on gun violence. This year’s winners were selected by Congresswoman Gabby Giffords; bestselling author Jason Reynolds; acclaimed playwrights James Ijames, Kate Hamill, and Karen Zacarías; and celebrated dramaturg Ken Cerniglia. Each winning playwright will receive a $500 stipend, see their play published and licensed through Concord Theatricals’ Playscripts imprint, and receive a Guild membership and craft training through The Dramatists Guild.
“The submission pool for this year’s ENOUGH! contest was nothing short of brilliant, making the job of judge a fun but difficult one,” says Jason Reynolds, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Long Way Down, 2024 MacArthur Fellow, and former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. “That being said, the dynamism and variety of style and perspective found in our selections represent what ENOUGH! is about, while also shining a light on the already bright future of our young people, as playwrights and otherwise. This has been a gift!”
Other winning entries include Holding Space by Abby Dougherty (Georgia), which investigates the emotional toll of healing and resistance following a school shooting; Oh Look, Another School Shooting! by Matias Finley (Wisconsin), which questions the cyclical nature of gun violence in schools and the ideological finger-pointing that follows; Nobody Cares About Death by Ian Hodges (Florida) gives Death the chance to weigh in on the increasing number of gunshot victims he has to meet each year; The Perfect Victim by Payton Aurora Jones (California), which examines the power of community care in the face of violence and systemic racism; and Under Wraps by Olivia Stanley (Texas), which dramatizes the dangerous escalation of intimate partner violence through movement and poetry.
As part of its Nationwide Reading on October 6, ENOUGH! is inviting schools, theaters, and community organizations to stage local readings of the plays, which will be made available for free. Producers of these regional readings are encouraged to seek out meaningful local partnerships and pair the plays with a community engagement component that addresses the realities of gun violence specific to their area.
“This year’s plays don’t just explore gun violence, they interrogate the systems, silences, and identities that keep people trapped in its aftermath,” says Michael Cotey, creator of ENOUGH! and Joaquin Oliver Artistic Producer. “These stories demand we confront not just the violence itself, but everything that allows it to persist. These teen writers aren’t asking for sympathy. They’re asking us to see the cages we’ve built and to break them.”
ENOUGH!’s goal is to have a reading in every state. To learn more about the winning playwrights and how to bring ENOUGH! to a local community on October 6, visit enoughplays.com/reading.
