When a young woman declares she is leaving her pampered life to become a soldier of war, her overprotective mother, love-struck neighbor, and sexy male cat, Mitzi, fight over the territory of her affection.
Productions
September 2005
Production, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland OR
directed by Matt Zrebski
July 2005
Workshop Production, Women’s Theater Initiative,
Cincinnati OH
directed by Kate Wilford
May 2004
Workshop Production, New Plays Festival, Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium, Providence RI
directed by Ken Prestininzi
Readings
February 2006
Reading, Abingdon Theatre Company, New York City
September 2004
Reading, The Empty Space Theatre, Seattle WA
directed by Susanna Burney
When a young woman declares she is leaving her pampered life to become a soldier of war, her overprotective mother, love-struck neighbor, and sexy male cat, Mitzi, fight over the territory of her affection.
Productions
September 2005
Production, Stark Raving Theatre, Portland OR
directed by Matt Zrebski
July 2005
Workshop Production, Women’s Theater Initiative,
Cincinnati OH
directed by Kate Wilford
May 2004
Workshop Production, New Plays Festival, Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium, Providence RI
directed by Ken Prestininzi
Readings
February 2006
Reading, Abingdon Theatre Company, New York City
September 2004
Reading, The Empty Space Theatre, Seattle WA
directed by Susanna Burney
Not your average play about war
Women's Theatre Initiative presents 'Dreampuffs of War'
Thursday, June 30, 2005
AroundCinci.com
By Allyson Jacob
Kristin Dietsche keeps hoping that Jennifer Haley will consider making her home in Cincinnati. She knows it’s a long shot, but she keeps hoping nonetheless.
“Jennifer is just finishing up in Providence,” Dietsche, the executive director of Women’s Theatre Initiative (WTI), explains. “She’s looking for a homebase. If she lives in New York, she’d have to do something else to pay the rent. But in smaller cities….” Dietsche’s voice trails off, and you can almost hear the unspoken end to the sentence.
Though most Cincinnati theatregoers have probably never heard of Haley, Dietsche is confident that they will soon know her name. A recent graduate of Brown University’s MFA program in playwriting, Haley has been studying under the tutelage of acclaimed playwright Paula Vogel. Now free from her studies, Haley is working to forge relationships with smaller theatres in smaller cities, in hopes of getting her work produced.
WTI is one of those smaller theatres, in arguably, one of those smaller cities. The group will presents Haley’s “Dreampuffs of War” Thursday, July 14 through Saturday, July 23 at the Columbia Performance Center in Columbia Tusculum. As WTI only produces a single work in an entire season, the choice of Haley’s play speaks volumes.
“WTI fell in love with Haley’s whimsical voice and creative spin on reality during the very first community play selection process when we presented audience-favorite ‘Butcher’s Daughter’ (a musical fantasy about a girl with knives for hands) in 2000 at Ensemble Theater,” Dietsche explains. " ‘S_Man,’ a social satire about ‘Superman,’ was a clear favorite at last year’s coffee house readings, but its 7-man/3-woman cast made it a difficult project for us to take on.”
Dietsche exchanged emails with Haley, and was led to “Dreampuffs,” which she quickly shared with the rest of WTI. Once the group had narrowed their choices for production and ultimately settled on Haley’s script, a collaboration was born.
“We read ‘Dreampuffs’ with the cast when Jennifer was here in May,” Dietsche states, “and Jennifer started revising with the cast in mind, particularly with the role Chris Guthrie is playing.” According to Dietsche, Haley is planning to return to Cincinnati for the second weekend of the production.
Set in a studio apartment in an imaginary place and time, “Dreampuffs” follows Lorna, a woman preparing to go off to war, leaving her beloved cat Mitzi in the care of her downstairs neighbor, a single janitor and “dog person.” Lorna’s mother Ellie tries to keep Lorna from leaving, but if she is determined to go, Ellie hopes that her daughter might at least get a husband out of the experience.
Despite the title, Dietsche insists that “ ‘Dreampuffs’ is not a play about the realities of war, but the dreams of war that are a part of our everyday lives, including our thoughts about romance, sex, food, and pets.”
“The play is very funny, very sexy and really meaningful,” Dietsche continues. “[WTI hasn’t] done funny before.”
The cast of “Dreampuffs” includes Mary Tensing, Chris Guthrie, Gary Warden and Shannon Rae Lutz. The production is directed by Kate Wilford.
According to Dietsche, WTI’s chooses its scripts through a Community Play Selection Process, which engages theater audiences in the adventure of choosing plays to be performed, through a series of formal and informal readings. Plays written by women of any era, country, and dramatic style are suggested, read, and discussed. The process not only helps WTI to choose a play, but it educates the community about the variety of plays written by women.
“Our company follows a ‘pleasure model’ rather than a ‘growth model,’” Dietsche states. “That way, we can do what we want in a spontaneous, unencumbered way.” Initially, when WTI was in its incubation period five years ago, the group considered following a growth model, but couldn’t see themselves as part of the organization once it started to take off. “We asked ourselves, ‘What do we want the group to be? What do our members want?’” she continues. “We decided that we like to read plays and go to plays.”
The ‘pleasure model’ and the decision to produce one show per season has freed WTI from concerns that normally plague other, more traditional upstart theatre companies. WTI doesn’t have to worry about subscriber base or ongoing sponsorship. Instead, the group can focus on collaborating with other theatres in town (such as The Know Theatre Tribe) and educating its own members about the work of women playwrights both past and present.
Intrigued? WTI always welcomes new readers and members. The 6th Annual Community Play Selection Process has already begun with free informal readings at sidewinder coffee & tea on Hamilton Ave. in Northside, Tuesdays at 6:30pm (June 28, July 19, August 2 & 16). Roles are distributed on the spot, and participants read and discuss a wide range of work by women. The public is invited to come and listen or maybe even read a role. Of these plays, four or five “finalists” will be selected for formal readings by professional actors on Cincinnati stages in September and October.
In an effort to piggyback on their current onstage production, the cast and crew of “Dreampuffs” will read Haley’s latest play, “Gingerbreadhouse,” on July 19. “It’s like ‘Hansel and Gretel’ meet ‘Sex and the City’,” Dietsche says, of Haley’s newest script.
Sounds like a collaboration made in heaven. Now if Dietsche could only get Haley to move to the city….