(Pacer Story by Anthony Anderson / Pacer Graphic by Darby Self)
Nepotistic or Narcissistic is a play written and performed by Duncan Hollis as a study of himself for his senior project. The University of Tennessee at Martin’s Visual and Theater Arts presented it in the William H. Snyder Little Theater on April 10, 2026 at 8:00pm.
The set consisted of a white desk in the center at the back of the stage. To the left of the stage there was a small dark brown wooden table with a pair of dance shoes, ballet shoes, roller skates, and three tri-colored juggling balls. The right side had a white foldable chair, and the center front of the stage was empty, save a small green “X” with tape. All of these locations are lit with stage lights noting their importance, with stage lights in between each of these four main lights creating a circle.
The Actor being performed by Duncan Hollis starts at the desk writing a script for the play being performed the next day, before arising from his office chair and exclaiming that he believes he has finished the script. The Voice (Brandon Jones) chimes in, reminding the Actor that the play is tomorrow. As the two banter with each other, the Actor begins to move clockwise around the circle of lights, seemingly refusing to enter the middle.
The Actor opens with, “Welcome to the first and last production of this show. A wise woman once said that it is human tendency to form… I’m sorry, hold on, I just can’t get into it right now,”
Then he walks around the lit circle counterclockwise, stopping and sitting down at the white foldable chair and expressing his doubts with the script. The voice backlashes with his own remarks on The Actors inability to do it. Then, the actor arises from the chair.
The Actor brings up that he originally wanted to be a baseball star and join the MLB. Unfortunately, when he was a child playing baseball in the front yard of his home with his mother, an elderly man spoke as he was driving by on his bike. He said, “I don’t see why you try with him, he will never be good at it.” Unknowingly to the older gentleman, this would stick with the Actor and trigger this cycle of self doubt within his life. Almost every action he would take would be followed by a “what if I am not good enough.” The Voice gives snark remarks, reminding the Actor of his play the following day once again, leading to a growing sense of self doubt. The Actor then proceeds to explain how he never finishes television shows because he never enjoys the endings. He also explains how perfect the middle of a story is, its climax always rising.
The Actor then walks clockwise and stops in the middle of the stage light between the desk and table of items, pondering on what he should do to open his play. The Actor then starts doing a “Mime at the Bar” skit where he begins pulling an imaginary rope, leading to a box closing in on him. As he drops to the ground to find an opening at the top of the box, he begins climbing a ladder before being attacked by an imaginary bear, thus ending the skit. Afterwards, he walks to the table clockwise and grabs the juggling balls to perform the next skit. The Actor successfully juggles the three balls clockwise until he gets to the stage light, dropping each juggling ball in succession. The Voice chimes in with his usual negative comments. The Actor then walks counterclockwise to the white desk and places these three juggling balls on a podium-like structure to the left of the three boxes stacked behind the desk.
Next, the Actor treads around the circle of lights. He talks about how much he enjoys dancing before being encouraged by the Voice to dance. The actor puts on his dance shoes and walks clockwise to the center circle with the “X”. As he tap dances around in a circle, the surrounding circles begin to move one by one. The Actor expresses his frustration with the speed of the circles, only for the Voice to remind him he was the one who preprogrammed the lights. This adds a feeling that the Voice might just be that, a voice in the Actors head speaking as a representation of his self doubt. He drops to the ground to remove the dance shoes, walking counterclockwise to put the shoes on the right of the three box podium.
Then, the Actor walks clockwise to the table once again, grabbing the roller skates and falling to the ground to put them on. He starts skating and talks directly to the Voice. He talks about how no matter, what the Voice is always there to doubt him. Every morning and every night, the Voice is the first person he has to talk with. All of this while skating effortlessly around the circle of lights, forever avoiding the center.
After a battle of self doubt between the Actor and the Voice, the Actor stops once more to remove the skates. He shouts, “Who do you think you are I am!”
Next, he walks counterclockwise to the podium behind the desk to place the skates on the left side of the podium-like structure.
Finally, the Actor makes his way clockwise around the circle right back to the wooden table to grab the last item. He grabs the ballet shoes, dropping down one last time to put the shoes on. He begins to try and do some ballet dances clockwise around the circle, failing the first few times before getting to the center. He lands right on the “X”. After succeeding in the next few dances and a few spins, he stops. This sparks him to tell a story about two girls he met during a play where he portrayed their father. He also speaks on how he learned to love to dance during ballet classes.
The Actor brings the shoes and places them at the top of the podium after removing them, showing how much ballet means to him. The Voice chimes in, reminding the Actor of the show starting soon. The lights all dim and the Actor walks clockwise to the front, stopping right on the “X”. A single light comes on and his shadow launches behind him, finally filling the once empty middle. He then says, “Welcome to the first and last production of this show. A wise woman once said it is human tendency to form circles, and we do, in everything.”
The lights fully extinguish and the room goes silent, before erupting in applause as the show ends.
Duncan Hollis states that inspiration derived from a culmination from everything he has experienced while in school.
“Well, sometimes I feel like I’m still in the same place. Even if I feel like I’ve grown or I’ve gotten better at things I feel like, y’know life is a circle, life is cycles. It might feel like I am in the same place but I am a different person every time. It was my mother who said it was always human tendency to form circles, and I felt like that was a perfect metaphor for how I feel about my school experience, and my life experience,” said Hollis.
When asked about the sentimental value of the items used during the play, he stated, “I feel like they all represent different things. The juggling balls are from when I learned to juggle back in high school, for a part of a show, and so it always reminds me of that, but I relearned how to juggle when I did a show here. I learned to roller skate here recently again since I haven’t roller skated when I was a kid, for a show that I did in the past year. Tap and ballet have kind of become my life, because I have been introduced to dance since transferring here and I fell in love with it immediately, and I have tried to do as much as possible with that, especially tap and ballet. I have to show that these things are just so important to me.”
When asked about why he moved counterclockwise at some points, other than moving clockwise, Hollis responded, “When I first rehearsed it I realise I walked the entire time counterclockwise, so then I changed it, because I want to be moving clockwise to show that I’m moving forward, but there are quite a few times of doubt in the show so it appears like it’s moving backwards so just switch directions, and go counterclockwise to show that progress has halted or I feel like I am regressing, at least for myself”
This metaphor of circles and self doubt and regressing all mixed together into a final production to show the ability to overcome, resulting in a successful senior project.
