Girls Like That
Girls like that
By Evan Placey
Directed by Walter Elder, M.F.A.
How to watch
We will only be having an in-person audience. This performance is open to the public, however, there are only 85 seats available to ensure we stick to our social distancing guidelines.
Tickets for the performance are free, so click the button below to book a seat for any of our performances. The show is running Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 7-9.
Girls Like That Cast List .pdfWalter Elder, M.F.A.
Elder is a member of Actor’s Equity Association, Theatre Communications Group, and an artistic member of Black Earth Collaborative Arts Company. Currently, he is an assistant professor of acting and directing in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. Elder received his BFA in Musical Theatre from Carnegie Mellon University, and his MFA in Directing from the University of Oklahoma. He has taught at Interlochen Center for the Arts, the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, Juniata College, Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He has worked as an actor, director, fight choreographer, dialect coach, designer, or technician on nearly 100 productions throughout the United States and abroad. At Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, he has directed Measure for Measure, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, and Glengarry Glen Ross. Selected work as a director also includes The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Metal Children, Marisol, Rumors, Shakespeare in Hollywood, Proof, One Man, Two Guvnors, Spring Awakening, Into the Woods, and World Goes 'Round. As an actor, he has performed with the American Shakespeare Center: Macbeth (Macbeth), Antonio (Merchant of Venice), Buckingham (Richard III), Hortensio (Taming of the Shrew), the National Shakespeare Company: Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), Ferdinand (The Tempest), and the North Carolina Stage Ensemble: Joseph (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat).
A Note from Our Director:
Girls Like That, written by Evan Placey, was specially commissioned, developed through work with, and first performed in 2013 by the youth theatre companies of Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth, and West Yorkshire Playhouse in England. Since then it has been performed around the world and we are delighted to bring this story to our audiences at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. The play was inspired by the public outcry over the viral YouTube video made by Amanda Todd before her suicide as a result of the vicious online bullying she experienced when a naked photograph of her was made widely public through social media. When we chose to produce this play last year, the Me Too movement was already being overshadowed by other social and political movements and protests in our country. Clearly, as a society, we have much to rectify, repair, reconstruct, and repent for if we are to build a stronger, more inclusive and welcoming society that embraces and recognizes diversity and equality not just in our laws but in our hearts and minds and actions towards others in a daily way.
Though the play’s settings jump around in time and place, the story is a reflection on the past being told by the 45 year old adult versions of the girls on the eve of their reunion. The inciting incident of the play is not the naked photo taken and sent by the central character but the reaction of the girls towards her. “Slut…You deserve everything coming to you.” The journey of the play takes us from judgement, condemnation, vindictive othering, and social ostracism to the linking of arms, sticking together, standing up for, and standing with each other. Girls Like That is a play about memory, offering the girls’ multiple individual perspectives on the events of their past. It is a play about self-reflection on the wrongs done to others by ourselves and a reconsideration of our choices. It is a play about the negative impacts of more and more immersive and pervasive technology and social media effecting our lives. It is a play about the history and the modern reality of being a girl and a woman in a society that does not fully recognize equality. It is a play ultimately about the empowerment of ourselves and empowering each other. I hope that our production of this relevant and resonant play engages you and causes you to reflect on these messages and their meanings in your own lives.
Special thanks go out to the Great River Shakespeare Festival for loaning us the steel frames for the benches, the staff of the SMUMN Maintenance Department who pulled screens and projectors out of storage, Sister Mary Elizabeth Ann McCullough for the vigil candles, the mothers of the cast for allowing us to use their priceless family photos, our student choreographers for the dance numbers, the SMUMN Marketing and Communications Department and students: Katie Early, Isaiah West, and Mackenzie Moller for poster design, publicity, website/virtual program design and ticketing links, and for the extra hours of video and photography directed and shot by the cast in their “off” time under the leadership of Bre Kenney. To the families of the faculty and staff for sacrificing time spent with us while we made this for you, and especially to my life’s partner, Dana McConnell, and our daughter, my Scarlett, who teach me every day what it is like to be a girl growing up to be a woman in this world, I cannot thank you enough.
I hope you enjoy the show!