TAKE.UP.SPACE. Staged Readings

Please join us for TAKE.UP.SPACE, the 2024-2025 Theatre Capstone Project Staged Readings. An open rehearsal will take place in LeFevre Theatre on Wednesday, February 12, at 8pm with a FREE performance on Thursday, February 13, at 8pm and a final performance on Saturday, February 15, at 2pm.

The Capstone Project in Theatre takes place over a full academic year. In the Fall, students participated in the Capstone Project Roundtable, in which theatre majors and minors came together to craft a vision for both collective leadership of the Capstone performance, and individual goals for their own participation. This production is the realization of that collaboration. Each Capstone student has taken on a specific role or roles to help bring the vision to fruition, and numerous other students -- majors, minors, and newcomers to the discipline -- have also been our creative partners. This spring, after the completion of the performances, each Capstone student will engage in thoughtful reflection about their process, achievements, and possible next steps as an artist.

Capstone participants Roya Amirsheybani, Lucy Bikahi, Erin Colville, and Ka’Nayah Landers-Daniels came up with the following mission for their project: We are producing TAKE.UP.SPACE. in order to practice developing and staging pieces we are deeply passionate about. We seek to explore femininity through individual as well as communal theatrical experiences. We hope our audiences and collaborators see themselves in the final product. Our goal is to reclaim the narratives of how our resiliency is perceived. We will be holding these performances to demonstrate, to ourselves and concentric circles of community, the culmination of our shared efforts throughout the Capstone process. We’re here to TAKE UP SPACE!

Please see a description of the staged readings below...

Shooting Stars
Written by Ka’Nayah Landers-Daniels
Director: Melody Ng 
Tatiana calls for an old childhood ritual—shooting star—when her sister Jasmine lashes out at her. The two sisters come together to discuss sexuality, religion, and acceptance under the light of a pillow pet in this cozy, heartfelt play.

Seek and You Shall Find
Written by Roya Amirsheybani
Director: Erin Colville
Rising Junior Mia is a talented student leader; she is doing all she can to make Incoming Students Conference, her school’s annual first-year welcome week, a success, working overtime to fulfill her responsibilities. So why is class clown Sean given all the credit for her hard work? Mia finds her voice in this short comedy. Complete with an ensemble of… “strong personalities,” this play shines a spotlight on what happens behind the scenes of an iconic tradition and the leadership dynamics at play. You guys —oops, I mean y’all— won’t want to miss this. 

*DISCLAIMER: The characters in this play, as well as the events that occur, are fictional. Any real-life similarities are simply a hilarious coincidence.

Daughters of Leda (excerpt)
Written by Madeline Sayet
Director: Lucy Bikahi 
In this excerpt, the women of Greek mythology and plays come together in the underworld to hash out some family issues: such as, who was responsible for starting the Trojan war? Can Clytemnestra and her daughters work out the issues created by Agamemnon? And most importantly, who has control over their stories? In this modern retelling, the women of classical Greek mythology begin to take control of their narratives back, telling their perspectives of the tales previously only centered around men. 

About What Matters
Written by Jennie Webb
Director: Ka’Nayah Landers-Daniels

About What Matters is a short, pointed play about, among other things, priorities, boundaries, certainties and letting life get to you. Waiting together for an acknowledgement that may never come, two friends find themselves caught up in a dangerously circular game of logic and loyalties, as they realize they’ve probably missed lunch.

1900s Women Bonding
Written by Catherine Weingarten
Director: Bianca Langlois 
Cassandra and Marie love their husbands. They’re so happy all the time. Neither of them feel sick… and yet they’ve both been told that they are. In this absurd comedy, these two women discuss the state of their marriages and their private thoughts over glittering tea before Marie is sent out to sea alone as treatment.

For more information: stmarys-ca.edu/takeupspace
For ADA/other questions, contact Tara Sundy at tms8@stmarys-ca.edu.