Director's Note:

Yup. It's another play about a book. I can't help it, I'm a Jo!

After doing Peter & the Starcatcher in October, it just made too much sense thematically that this would be next. While both scripts are about growing up and mirror my own coming of age, they have very different ways of going about it. Where Peter embraces holding onto the things that make us who we are from childhood, Little Women sees Jo face the awkward and sometimes painful parts of growing up. Sometimes we lose people or we fail or we give up things to focus on others. Growth means change and that is never without discomfort.

There's no starstuff or mermaids in this show, but I believe that there is a kind of magic in how we find who we are through these changes. Contrary to what she is told throughout the show, Jo learns that growing up is not a one-size-fits-all experience and that growing up looks different to each individual. Despite hardships, social expectations, and other challenges, we all become the version of ourselves we need to be in time. Sometimes that requires standing up for what we believe in, making difficult decisions, making amends for mistakes, or saying goodbye to the people and things we can't take with us into the next phases of life.

I think the thing that makes these transitions worthwhile, the thing that persists despite the ever turning hands of time, is the love we carry with us. Whether that is familial, platonic, romantic, self, or what have you, love makes our real stories worth seeing through to share one day and makes us blossom into our best selves in the end.

Thanks Vern!

-Cassie Adelman