Audie Winner ‘TJ Crowley’ Approved for Thespys Competition Nationwide
The Educational Theatre Association has approved the Wichita-made scriptbook and audio drama for its Thespys Approved Materials List, clearing student performers in every state to bring the free Redline Scenes cuttings into Thespys competition.
WICHITA, Kan. (GVP) — The Educational Theatre Association has added The Real Education of TJ Crowley: Coming of Age on the Redline, the Audie Award-winning audio drama and scriptbook, to its Thespys Approved Materials List, clearing high school theatre students nationwide to perform it in Thespys competition. The Redline Scenes, the free scene-cutting library Grain Valley Publishing built in Wichita for Kansas speech and drama programs, is now open to Thespys entries from every state.
Helen Rhodes, Learning & Innovation Coordinator for EdTA's Thespys Team, confirmed in writing on Aug. 27 that The Real Education of TJ Crowley: Coming of Age on the Redline has been added to the Thespys Approved Materials List, the roster of more than 13,000 titles a Thespian anywhere in the country may draw from for a performance entry. Without a spot on that list, a student cannot use a title in a Thespys performance category. With one, any Thespian in any troupe can.
School just started, and the cuttings are ready to use this semester.
What Any Thespian Can Do With This Today
Under EdTA's terms, a student may perform an approved title in a Thespys event at no charge, with no separate contract. That sits on top of Grain Valley's own clearance, which already covers NSDA, NCFL, NIETOC, KSHSAA and, in its own words, "any state association," along with the college circuits NFA, AFA and Pi Kappa Delta. The national listing widens who can walk in the door. The clearance is what lets them stay once they're in it.
NSDA's rule is conditional, not blanket: if a performance is challenged, the competitor must be able to produce the original published source, and a photocopy doesn't satisfy that. A student performing a Redline Scenes cutting is safest bringing the scriptbook, not because it's checked every round, but because it's the one thing that holds up if it is. Purchase the Scriptbook direct from the publisher for $19.99, and listen to the complete audio drama before you cut a scene, hearing the professional cast is the fastest way to find the right moment.
The cuttings, with word counts, run times, and eligibility by organization, are posted now at grainvalleypublishing.com/forensics.
A Note Before You Choose a Cutting
The story is set in Wichita in 1968, and it doesn't soften that year. The full scriptbook contains period-authentic racial slurs, spoken by characters the story condemns, not endorses. They are in the text because the story is set on the redline in the year Dr. King was killed, and the people who say those words are the ones the book holds to account. None of the posted cuttings contains one.
The choice belongs to the coach and the student, and the page is built so it can be made before rehearsal, not during it. Each cutting on the forensics page is marked CLEAN, with a one-line description ahead of the text, so nobody has to read a whole scene to find out what is in it. Coaches and students who cut their own scene from the scriptbook are covered by the same clearance. Grain Valley's published permission authorizes and recommends the spoken substitution "racial slur" in every context, and using it does not void the permission. The material is for grades 9 to 12.
What Is in the Library
The Redline Scenes is the free scene-cutting library Grain Valley launched in August 2026, pulled straight from the TJ Crowley scriptbook for speech and drama competition and classroom use. The cuttings are live now, each one verbatim from the published text, timed at competition pace, with no royalty and no application required.
The audio drama puts the same scenes in a room with fifteen actors playing twenty-four roles, every one of them a credited winner of the 2025 Audie Award, Young Adult. Dani Martineck plays TJ. Dion Graham, an AudioFile Golden Voice and Audible Narrator Hall of Fame narrator known to television audiences from HBO's The Wire, plays Dr. Robert Washington. Before choosing a cutting, listen to the full audio drama and purchase the scriptbook for $19.99, the published source a judge may ask to see.
A sampler of short clips from the production, performed by the original cast, is on YouTube as TJ Crowley Original Artists, Sample Scenes. It is the fastest way to hear what the company sounds like. The Redline Scenes cuttings are not in it. To hear those performed, stream or download the complete recording; the playlist description carries links to Spotify, Apple Books, Audible, Kobo, Google Play and Libro.fm.
How TJ Crowley Became What It Is
The Real Education of TJ Crowley is set in Wichita in 1968, on Hillside, the dividing line the story's author grew up one block from. At 25th Street North, one side was 67214, a redlined ZIP code. The other was 67220. The story is inspired by real events and real people, though TJ and his neighbors are invented characters, not a documentary record.
Grain Valley Publishing spent four years adapting the novel into a scriptbook and a full-cast audio drama, in partnership with co-author and director May Wuthrich. What they built won the 2025 Audie Award, Young Adult, an AudioFile Earphones Award, and an IPPY Gold Medal, Outstanding Books of the Year — the only audiobook in that group.
The Audie Awards are the premier awards program in the United States for audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. Young Adult was one of 28 competitive categories at the 30th Annual Audies in March 2025, judged in an industry valued at $2.2 billion and dominated by some of the largest publishing houses in the world.
Grain Valley Publishing is an independent press in Wichita, Kansas, and this was a nonprofit arts production, made possible by the fiscal sponsorship of the Youth Educational Empowerment Program and in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. What it brought to that field was a company: co-author and director May Wuthrich, fifteen actors, and a Wichita choir.
The goal from the start was getting this story heard in public spaces. That mission has carried into classrooms too, through years of school workshops and assemblies reaching thousands of students. The Redline Scenes extends it into a room nobody had planned for: a free, cleared cutting a Thespian in any state can now enter, at no cost to a school and no cost to a student.
"Thank you again for your willingness to make your work available to Thespys participants," Rhodes wrote. "We really appreciate your support of our students and the program."
Coaches and directors can request the free packet, which includes the cuttings with trim notes, the printable clearance letter, historical sourcing on 1968 Wichita, a parent letter template, and Kansas ELA alignment, on the Redline Scenes page or by email at grainvalleypress@gmail.com.
Purchase the Scriptbook for $19.99, $3 off the $22.99 retail price (13% off) · Contact us for bulk pricing or classroom inquiries
Under NSDA rules, competitors must have the original published source available to prove the material is publicly accessible if challenged; photocopies are not accepted. Grain Valley recommends each performer carry their own copy and listen to the complete audio drama before choosing a cutting.
About Grain Valley Publishing
Grain Valley Publishing Company, LLC is an independent press based in Wichita, Kansas. Its titles include The Real Education of TJ Crowley: Coming of Age on the Redline, winner of the 2025 Audie Award, Young Adult, an AudioFile Earphones Award, and an IPPY Gold Medal, Outstanding Books of the Year, and the press's debut novel, Maggie Vaults Over the Moon. More information is available at grainvalleypublishing.com.