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Give a listen to the second half of our first-ever student matinee, performed at the beautiful Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space on March 13, 2025. Listen to Part 1 here.

The fantastic Najah Imani Muhammad hosted the show for a theater full of high school juniors from Global Learning Collaborative and Talent Unlimited High School to help inspire the personal stories they want to tell in their college application essays.

Story partners Carl M. Banks and Nicole Greevy embodied the low and high notes of each other’s musical true tales, captivating our student audience with both story and song.

Thank you to NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund (A Statewide Theatre Regrant Program) for helping us make our first-ever student matinee a reality. Here’s to what we hope is the first of many!

Photo credit: Russ Rowland

Podcast narrated by Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons.

Stories

  • “Carl’s Lucky Dollar,” by Carl M. Banks, performed by Nicole Greevy, and directed by KJ Fitzsimmons.
  • “Of Axes and Tree Surgeons,” by Nicole Greevy, performed by Carl M. Banks, and directed by KJ Fitzsimmons.

Bios

Carl M. Banks is a troubadour and musical nomad. Born in the heartland of Saint Louis, Missouri, he found his rhythm in the bustling streets of New York City, now calling Astoria, Queens, his home.  Traversing the country as a touring singer-songwriter, his lyrics and melodies echo the highs and lows of the American landscape while his stories touch on personal and profound narratives. He has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour and WFUV’s local artist spotlight, “New York Slice.” Carl is also an ultra-marathon runner and co-creator of Queens-based “Bridge and a Slice Half Marathon” and “HotDog Eater 50 kilometer.”

Nicole Greevy is a playwright and actor and is thrilled to be returning to No, YOU Tell It! You can read one of her previous pieces, “Nerd: The Next Generation,” in the No, YOU Tell It! Ten-Year Anthology. She is a New York State Council of the Arts 2025 grant recipient for playwriting. If you love her dulcet tones today, you can hear her as Sheriff Rowland, and many others, on the award-winning fiction podcast Uncanny County, where she contributes as both performer and writer.