This scene is based around when I broke up with Kate Thomas. While I was really down about it initially, I later found I was better off afterwards. For after we broke up, my feelings of being unimportant and my self-doubt all went away.

This is a direct contrast of the feelings Nick was feeling in the previous scene. His former insecurities and doubts are now gone and he is happy for the time being, reflecting the warped mind state and mood-swings he is subject to having.

Mary-Lake High School is the representation of the high-school I actually attend, Holston High School, which is an extremely small school (Enrollment is around 290-300.) in Southwest Virginia.

This prose effectively sums up the relationship I had with the girl behind the character Kate Thomas. She was CONSTANTLY having to work with one after school committee, club, or service organization, to such an extent it seemed that I never got a moment with her, which often left me feeling so unimportant to her, even though we were both affectionate and compassionate towards one another.

I have left this line in bold in every single copy of this play I’ve ever made.

It goes back to when I would talk to my mother about the problems in life I was so obsessed with, trouble with a girlfriend, lack of confidence, insecurity, and etcetera, While now I realize these problems are just life and something everyone faces, at the time I let my every thought be consumed by these fears. My mother once made this statement to me, and it struck a chord with me where her other comforts had failed. It was the beginnings to the emotional reform that can be seen at the end of Unopened.

The unopened letters, while an important prop and plot piece throughout the play, were meant to represent life’s potential, something that is always easily within our reach, but so often we fail to grasp it or the importance it has. We become distracted through hardships, or only looking for ourselves and our vendettas, and as a result we leave the potential we have in life untouched, or unopened.

Nick Talbert is the character created to represent me throughout this play.

The whole plot of Unopened was inspired by actual events from a time in my life where I was dealing with terrible mood swings, self-consciousness, and an overall nervousness about me. However, these feelings, as I later came, were pointless and the only thing these feelings accomplished were distracting me from the real priorities of what is truly important in life, which is one of the main themes of the play.

Mrs. Talbert is a character drawn from and inspired by my mother, many of the words of solace she offers to Nick throughout the play were taken from actual things my mother said to me during times of plight.