It’s Howard Strand’s seventeenth birthday, and he’d rather be anywhere else than at his dinner table. Living in a family with as much tension as his own has taken its toll on him, and he makes a desperate bid to assert himself before he has to blow out this year’s candles. As he makes this assertion in an effort to stand up to his father Charles’ iron fist and to rattle his mother Ava’s imagined peace, Howard is left grappling with the implication that he might be more like one of his parents than he wants to be. Bitter Seventeen explores the complex and cruel relationships that can rear their heads within some families.

Graduation has come and gone for the class of 2022 at UC Berkeley. For many newly former students, this means time for exploration, parties, and relaxation. Yet for Rosemary and Miranda, it means standing on a beach in the early morning after a wild graduation party, confronting their shared four years at Berkeley, and asking what they will all mean now that their ideal futures are just that much closer to them. Meeting in the Middle explores the twin natures of idealism for the future and nostalgia for the past, and questions the merit of doggedly pursuing one’s own dreams in spite of an offered hand.