MC Theatre to present “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” Oct. 28-31
Oct. 19, 2021
The Maryville College Theatre Department will present “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” Oct. 28-31, 2021.
Performances are scheduled for 8 p.m. Oct. 28-30 and 2 p.m. on Oct. 31 in the Clayton Center for the Arts’ Haslam Family Flexible Theatre. Tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for seniors (ages 60 and older) and students. Admission is free for MC students, faculty, and staff with ID, although a printed ticket is required for admission. To purchase tickets, please contact the Clayton Center Box Office at 865-981-8590 or visit the Clayton Center website at claytonartscenter.com. Please note that masks are required in all indoor campus spaces.
“Five Women Wearing the Same Dress,” written by Alan Ball, is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. The play takes place on a Saturday afternoon in June 1993, during an ostentatious wedding reception at a large, turn-of-the-century mansion in a stylish, old-money suburb of Knoxville, Tenn. Five reluctant, identically clad bridesmaids hide out in an upstairs bedroom, each with her own reason for avoiding the proceedings below. As the afternoon wears on, these five identically dressed women talk, laugh, argue, cry and console one another, while the sounds of the reception below float in through the bedroom’s massive window.
“Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” is a “window into a very specific moment in time in a very specific place and the lives of the people who occupy those spaces and all the unspoken spaces in between, thereby creating a lens in which to view how much has changed in almost 30 years and how much, for better or for worse, still remains the same,” the description reads.
Laura Beth Wells, adjunct instructor of theatre at Maryville College and a professional actor who has appeared on Broadway, is the director of the production. Wells said she initially selected the play because it “ticked a lot of boxes” needed, in terms of production, including a small cast and a single set. As she and MC students began working on it, she discovered that it was perfect fit – not only for her group of MC actors, but for current audiences, too.
“Alan Ball’s writing is fast-paced, funny, poignant and provides so much depth in how the characters are written, all of which makes it an exciting piece for both the actors and the audience,” Wells said. “I also think setting the play in the year it originally premiered – 1993 – and the fact that we are performing it [near] Knoxville, Tennessee, where the play is set, gives us a unique opportunity for self-reflection regarding how far we’ve come (or not) in regards to some of the issues the characters are struggling with in the play that we didn’t have the language to express in 1993 – recognizing, naming and celebrating the full spectrum of human sexuality and gender expression, what is expected of us because of our perceived gender and how limiting that can be, what constitutes consent and when does the power dynamic between two people make real consent impossible, why marriage equality matters, how easy it is to ignore our own privilege, how pandemics touch us all even when we think we’re immune, and how keeping one another safe is the ultimate act of love.
“The most brilliant thing is that ‘Five Women Wearing the Same Dress’does all this while being wickedly funny, and I think it’s safe to say we could all use a good laugh right now,” Wells added. “The privilege of being able to do live theatre at this moment in time is not lost on me, and I thank Maryville College every day for creating a safe environment in which we are able to come together and participate in this ancient, most human of art forms at a time when we need it the most.”
Cast members include: Olivia Cameron ’25 as Frances; Ghost Williams ’25 as Meredith; Jenni Cate Rhodes ’24 as Trisha; Brittany Barthelmess ’22 as Georgeanne; Alyson Ament ’25 as Mindy; Colin Hood ’25 as Tripp (Thursday and Saturday performances) and Georganne; Wade Mathews ’25 as Tripp (Friday and Sunday performances); Justice Potts ’25 as Trisha/Mindy; and Aaliyah Bowman ’25 as Frances/Meredith. JoJo Prost ’23 is the stage manager, and Rachel Ealy ’24 and Eric Magee ’25 are assistant stage managers.
“Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” marks Wells’s professional directing debut. She is an actor, singer, voice over actor, and teaching artist. She made her Broadway debut as Emily Osborn in the original company of “Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark,” directed by Julie Taymor and Philip McKinley, and has worked in regional theatres across the country for more than 25 years. With a bachelor of arts degree in theatre from the University of Tennessee and an MFA in acting from Kent State University, Wells is also an accomplished teaching artist. She spent a year as a resident professional teaching artist at Cornell University and is currently an adjunct in the theatre departments of University of Tennessee and Pellissippi State Community College. She has also taught at Knoxville Children’s Theatre, Flying Anvil Theatre, Hangar Theatre, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Syracuse University, SUNY Binghamton, and Calaveras Repertory Theatre. She is a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association.