Welcome to Author Insights! Ever wonder what goes on in the mind of a playwright? In this series, you get a rare and exciting opportunity to hear directly from the authors themselves. Each article offers personal insights from the playwright, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process, character motivations, and thematic explorations that bring their scripts to life.
Below, you’ll find a downloadable blog post offering valuable insights directly from the author of New Year’s Eve at the Stop-n-Go. The downloaded PDF also includes supplemental classroom activities to help you connect the play’s themes and characters with your students.
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Stop-n-Go and the Art of Growing Up
Samantha Oty
At its earliest, New Year’s Eve at the Stop-n-Go didn’t even start as a play. Back in 2011, it was a Green Day fanfiction, scribbled out with all the angst and heart of someone trying to figure out what growing up meant. That spirit—loud, messy, unsure—stuck with me, even as the story evolved and found its footing on stage.
The real hurdle in turning it into a play was the setting. I was just one full-length script into my career and already bored stiff with living room dramas. I wanted something different. Something weird and intimate and liminal. Then I finally watched Clerks, and it clicked: a gas station is probably the most '90s setting possible for a '90s play. It’s this strange kind of purgatory where people come and go (or, stop and go, if you will), where you can feel stuck while everything else is moving around you. It was perfect.
The Y2K backdrop came naturally after that. I was fascinated by that moment in time—how it felt like the world was holding its breath on the edge of something new. The leap from 1999 into 2000 became a metaphor for growing up: terrifying, full of hype and possibility, and never what you expect.
And then there’s Michigan. Whenever I write something nostalgic, I always go back to Michigan. That’s where my heart lives. Snowy winters. Halloween costumes hidden under winter coats. Watching Nickelodeon in the bedroom of my childhood apartment. When I decided to make Stop-n-Go a nostalgia play, setting it in Michigan wasn’t a decision—it was a given.
The road to the first production was long and bumpy. I finished the script in January 2020, and all I had was one scrappy reading thrown together by my friends—each of whom helped shape the characters with their own quirks and voices. Then the pandemic hit, and the script sat quiet for a while. There was an online workshop, which led to the movie adaptation, though I still have a lot of complicated feelings about that version.
But whatever negativity I carried started to wash away when Stop-n-Go finally had its world premiere at Northern Kentucky University. As a playwright, you always hope your actors will connect with the material, but these college actors? They blew me away. They understood the characters in ways that made them feel more alive than ever. My husband even got a little emotional on opening night.
And one of the most meaningful moments came after the show, when someone thanked me for how authentic and well-written the LGBTQ characters were—especially knowing I don’t belong to that group. That kind of connection is everything. That’s why we do this.
Each character in Stop-n-Go feels like they were cut from a different piece of me. Writing it was like building a collage out of my own memories, questions, fears, and friendships. I always knew I wanted to adapt the script for high school performers one day—especially after working with the teen actors at The June Bug Center, where I’m the program coordinator.
Teenagers deserve to see themselves fully realized and fully loved on stage. Not watered down. Not backgrounded. Fully human.
So maybe this all started as a piece of fanfiction. Maybe it sat in the dark for a few years. But Stop-n-Go is a story about the messiness of growing up, about the liminal spaces between who you are and who you’re becoming, and about how the smallest moments can end up meaning everything.
And I hope it finds its way into many more rehearsal rooms, convenience stores, and hearts from here on out.