costume design  |  dramaturgy  |  performance

Notes from the Dramaturg: "Sarah DeLappe started writing this play in 2014 after seeing the exhibit Here and Elsewhere at the New Museum in NYC that depicted civil war in the Middle East. She was “moved by the dichotomy of sympathy vs empathy”, and how American museum-goers viewed this work, yet had nothing to say about it except where they should next go to get brunch. The American teenager is simultaneously infantilized and not allowed to have opinions on these topics, yet held to the same moral and ethical standards as the adults enacting (or not enacting) change. At this time, young Americans were growing up in constant political and environmental turmoil. Now, in 2022, teenagers are living through a global pandemic and a rapid rise in political unrest and fascism— and the tragedies that The Wolves address, however briefly, are still active in our world. The teenage girl is one of pop media's largest audiences and subjects, yet she is often reduced to a vapid, hypersexualized one-dimensional caricature. Positive, accurate depictions are rarely seen, with representation for queer youth even rarer. Our approach to The Wolves, already a groundbreaking play full of characters with depth and empathy, was to subvert these tropes even more. Queer and intersectional feminist lenses helped us address relationships between the characters and each of their own private struggles most clearly seen in the actors’ actions more than dialogue— from disordered eating and gender identity to processing grief and loss."