NEW KID (by Dennis Foon)
New Kid (also known as “New Canadian Kid” when performed in Canada), explores xenophobia, racism, and allyship. Nick has just moved to the U.S. from “Homeland,” with her family. People in the U.S. do not speak her language, and the audience can’t understand the Americans either. The playwright has created a device where the Americans speak gibberish, and Nick speaks the language the audience can understand (the dominant language in the country where the play is being produced).
In this production, I created a futuristic and vibrant “homeland,” and carried those elements into the “homelanders” characters as well. Then, when Nick moves to the U.S., the school system utilizes industrial elements, such as brick, while the Americans wear primary colors only. The contrast between homeland and the U.S. begins to blur, and elements of both countries are visible onstage, as Nick overcomes the xenophobia she faces in this new country.
This TYA production toured throughout Ohio in 2017, during the first year of the new presidential administration. The selection of this play was intentional.
THIS GIRL LAUGHS, THIS GIRL CRIES, THIS GIRL DOES NOTHING (by Finegan Kruckemeyer)
“Triplet sisters are left in the forest by their woodcutter father. From this fairytale beginning, three resolutions are made – one sister will walk one way, one the other, and the third will stay right where she is. Twenty years later, having circumnavigated the globe, and fought vikings, and crossed oceans, and tamed wilds, and achieved greatness, the three meet again, as women.” (Finegran Kruckemeyer)
This play explores sisterhood, womanhood, and the choices women and girls make out of necessity. For this production, I wanted each sister to visually represent the element that most closely aligns with her literal and spiritual journey. Beatrix adventures the ocean, gains confidence in her strength and beauty, and so wears blue. Albienne becomes a warrior, but soon discovers she would rather create things than destroy them. She wears red. Carmen decides to wait for her father, and builds a humble life for herself within the woods, exactly where her father left her. She wears green.
Staged with four actors who play multiple characters, this production utilized physical theatre, found-object puppetry, and much imagination.
TELL
Tell is an original Theatre for Dialogue program for ages 7-10. This interactive program invites young people to become agents of change in their own lives. This program is based on the foundational principle that adults have the responsibility to keep young people safe, and that young people have the right to ask for help from adults. In this program, young audiences begin thinking critically about the concept of physical boundaries and what to do if someone crosses those boundaries. Audiences lead characters their own age through telling an adult if their boundaries are crossed, and encouraging characters to continue telling until an adult helps keep them safe.
Through Tell, young people are begininning to think about what their own boundaries are, who they might tell in their own lives if someone crosses their physical boundaries, and practicing what it feels like to be an ally to a survivor of violence.
Tell premiered in the 2015 Cohen New Works Festival at the University of Texas at Austin, in April. For more information about the festival, visit: NewWorksFestival.org
