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In the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine in Portland, Maine, "An Unlikely Story," a new play from �������� master’s candidate Kelsey Tribble, saw its stage debut during the museum’s centennial celebration weekend on May 18-21. 

Tribble, who completed her bachelor’s degree in anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, will begin pursuing her master's degree in English this fall at ��������. 

The play focuses on a time-travelling member of an extinct species, saccorhytus coronarius — an early ancestor to spiders and insects — who tries to find out the fate of their species.  

“I’ve always loved writing, but I haven’t been doing it in a disciplined and focused way until last year,” Tribble said. “It became clear to me I had abandoned part of myself by not pursuing that, and I realized it was not too late to start.” 

Tribble described the play as being about evolution, extinction, friendship and time travel. Tribble said An Unlikely Story was a dramatic change in pace from the last play she wrote she, which focused on how people struggle with grief and communicating with loved ones.  

An Unlikely Story follows a human child as she’s introduced to this strange creature and as they learn to see past each other’s differences. 

Tribble said she applied to have her play performed in part because she had family in the Portland area, but also because the celebration offered a new and exciting project to take on.  

“When I saw the call for submissions, it seemed like a fun challenge, and one thing led to another,” Tribble said. 

Tribble said her creative process involved getting into the headspace of her inner child. 

“I feel like I grew up at a young age, so it sounded almost therapeutic to time-travel back to the distant past when everything was just so full of wonder, possibility and magic,” Tribble said. 

Also a musician, Tribble said playwriting offers a dramatically different experience than music, in which words can come to life with meaning in a different way than musical notes. 

 “I’m really excited by the collaborative aspect of playwriting,” Tribble said. “Once I finished writing it, it went to this whole crew of other people and their imaginations to bring it to life and share it with multiple different audiences.” 

Tribble had limited involvement with the actors, but met with the director of the play and the director of the theater over Zoom before the performance. 

“In the future, I’d like to be more involved in the process of production,” Tribble said. “I was generally satisfied by the way they brought it to life, but I would like to be a little more involved in future projects.” 

Tribble said she wanted to write a play that would bring the topics of climate change and mass species extinction closer to home and create a way to have a conversation about difficult subjects. 

“I thought it would be worthwhile to dip a toe into that conversation with kids,” Tribble said. “They are the ones who will be experiencing this most in their lives.” 

As Tribble continues to write, she aims to spark these conversations through theater. 

“I don’t think I fully accomplished the goal of figuring out how to have that conversation,” Tribble said. “But it’s something I’d like to continue, and I think playwriting can be an effective medium for exploring that.”