Breaking Character: On September 5, Gracie Gardner’s Athena returned to JACK for a limited engagement this September. The new drama, about the rivalry and friendship of two adolescent fencers, will return for a limited run in September. The return run is once again presented by The Hearth, whose mission is to hire, support, and tell the stories of women and non-binary artists. Below, check out an interview between Gracie and director Emma Miller.
3 comments:
This work seems like something I would really enjoy. I’m definitely going to take some time to read the script once I can get my hands on a copy. One point that the playwright made in this interview really resonated with me, and is a lot of the reason I’d be interested in reading Athena. The idea that for high school women who are interested in dramatic theatre, there really aren’t a lot of roles available. It’s very rare that teenage girls are featured in plays (usually it’s 30 something wives or aging aristocratic widows) and even rarer that those roles are actually of substance beyond being a moody teenage stereotype. I know when I was in high school, it was always a struggle for your director to pick the fall play. She really wanted works that culd showcase the students, the majority of whom were women, but it was a difficult task. So to have a work like this, which seems interesting and realistic and also features young women, is unique. I can only hope that eventually the rights to produce this work at a high school level will be available.
This musical has an interesting concept. One thing that I enjoy about it is the fact that it is written for a younger audience to perform and enjoy. Often times in high school theatre, especially when performing musicals, there is material which directors feel uncomfortable including, because the piece that they’re performing was initially written and performed for a more mature audience. Well here, they have no reason to cut something like that, as the audience they’re performing with and for is what should be expected. This is something that I ran into very frequently with my high school, where cuts would completely change the show to an extent where the main character of the entire show would change. This happened with the last show I participated in there, The Addams Family. The directors ended up cutting all sexual tension between Gomez and Morticia, and cut two of Gomez’s numbers, changing him into a completely shallow/middling supporting character. It’s nice to see high school theatre written about high schoolers, for high schoolers.
The show described in the interview is really interesting to me for several reasons, the main one being that it focuses on two women and their relationship. In our high school theater, all our mainstage plays seemed to have a male main character, with women relegated to supporting roles or love interests, despite the number of women involved in theatre in our school far outnumbering the men. I enjoyed reading about Gardner’s show and find it interesting that she wrote the show specifically for high school theater and high school actors, and would love to see a production of this!
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