Wesleyan gets ‘Edgy’ in latest production

The name says a lot about Wesleyan College’s upcoming stage production.

“Edgy Bits” features four one-act plays with adult language and situations. The production opens Thursday and runs through Dec. 3.

“These are edgy, edgy plays,” said Jan Lewis, who is directing the plays and who is chair of Wesleyan’s theater department. “They are all about theater or performing, so that is the theme that connects them.”

She said the plays also are funny.

“There is a lot of comedy, and there’s some darkness,” Lewis said. “All four of the plays have elements of both comedy and drama.”

The production kicks off with “Bad Language” by Robert Fieldsteel, a playwright and an artist in residence at Wesleyan. It features student Theresa Kors.

“It foregrounds the whole issue of language,” Lewis said. “It’s a one-woman show. It’s really tough.”

The second piece is “Goody F***ing Two Shoes” by Jennifer Maisel and features students Isabelle King and Sydney King, who are not related.

“It is a satire on a high school production of ‘The Crucible,’ ” Lewis said. “It’s only two women, so they really have to be fabulous,” Lewis said.

The third play is Lewis’ adaption of “The Stronger” by August Strindberg. This piece features Kors again as well as Thu Nguyen.

“It’s a very interesting play for two women, also very difficult,” Lewis said.

There will be a short intermission following the first three plays and the second act will be “Walking on Chairs” — a piece Lewis co-wrote with Nguyen.

“We did a series of interviews and I began putting the play together based on (Nguyen’s) interviews,” Lewis said. “And in rehearsals, she and I have edited the piece together — added, subtracted, reshaped, moved things around.”

Lewis is retiring after the fall semester and said she really wanted to work on something special with Nguyen, who is from Vietnam.

“I became very interested in her experiences as an actor, as a woman from Vietnam here in the United States, and in her life in Vietnam, which is part of her,” she said. “So, she and I created this play together.”

Lewis said all of the pieces will showcase some of her students’ talent.

“I teach the whole acting sequence and I really wanted to highlight some of our wonderful women actors,” Lewis said.

This story was originally published November 23, 2016 at 1:59 PM with the headline "Wesleyan gets ‘Edgy’ in latest production."