From Wednesday, Sept. 29 to Sunday, Oct. 3, the Meredith College Theatre Department will be showing Space Girl by Mora V. Harris. The live radio play is directed by Steven Roten, Professor of Theatre, and stars Bliss Wells, ‘23, as main character Arugula Suarez. All performances are free but reservations must be made in advance to attend at this link. Because of capacity limits on performances due to COVID-19, waiting lists will be made for any shows that have been sold out.
Space Girl is a play about Arugula Suarez, a 16-year-old alien who just wants to fit in and who finds herself in an American high school on Earth. Roten told The Herald that he chose the play because “it is a beautiful play which gets to the heart of what it means to be human...It discusses the ideas of belonging, loss and acceptance.” He also said that the play was able to adapt well to the “radio play hybrid concept” the department wanted to experiment with. The staged radio play format will allow actors to “move to and away from microphones at the front of the stage to perform the scene” instead of using the more common method of blocking, or actor movement onstage. This causes the play to become an aural experience rather than a visual experience, according to Roten. The play will also utilize pre-recorded sounds and live sound effects produced by a team of Foley artists to create complementary soundscaping.
Playwright Mora V. Harris, a Durham native, will be attending one of the shows and will give a talkback following the Thursday evening show.
By Olivia Slack, Co-Editor in Chief