For her college senior thesis , Schneider made a cross-country road tour in a former ambulance studying regional dialects . During her research into accents , she " visited all the English-speaking countries in the world , conducting more than 7,000 interviews over all . " From the interviews she created a one-woman show called '' Freedom of Speech '' in which she tells the stories of 34 people in their voices . The various quotes are combined into a story . When interviewed about the shows by Western Washington University newspaper '' The Western Front '' , she explained that " People in America today are scared to speak up and tell their perspective on what our nation is or where it is going ... I wanted to repeat the peoples ' words verbatim so the audience could develop their own perspective . " Using a semi-autobiographical approach , Schneider links the quotes and stories together , saying " it ’s really a love story about a petulant girl who starts out hating America for perpetuating hate . She begins collecting sounds and winds up falling in love with her country . " The show won the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival award for " Best Solo Show "
New York International Fringe Festival
New York International Fringe Festival
Eliza Schneider