Innovocative
Theatre targets Tampa grade-school bullying in
THE HUNDRED DRESSES
Local theater's bold season on childhood and
adolescent peer abuse concludes
with an award-winning children's classic
Innovocative
Theatre's third season, devoted to examining violence and
bullying among American children and adolescents, has left Tampa
audiences stunned and the region's critics unanimous on its
achievements.
The gutsy young Tampa troupe follows that success by focusing
on grade-school bullying in The Hundred Dresses,
a children's literature classic that remains on the National
Education Association's "Top 100 Books for Children" after winning
the John Newbery Honor Award in 1944. The family-friendly drama
closes Innovocative Theatre's 2019 season with a run August
2 - 11 at Tampa's Stageworks Theatre.
The time is September 1938, and tumultuous social and economic
forces, at work across the globe and in the United States during
the Great Depression, are being felt in a public school classroom
in a rural Connecticut town. Ten-year-old Wanda Petronski is
trying to fit in among the other students in Miss Mason's class,
but that isn't easy. For starters, she's shy, and a slow reader.
Her family's poor, and they live in a shack on the outskirts
of town. But the added stigma Wanda faces as a member of a Polish
immigrant family comes to a head when she claims she has one-hundred
beautiful dresses-though she's only ever been seen in one.
In this unique stage adaptation, Wanda's story unfolds through
the eyes of another student: Maddie, who's the best friend of
the headstrong Peggy, the most popular girl in school. When
Peggy and other students start to make fun of Wanda, Maddie
is confronted with an uncomfortable choice-one that will affect
her life and the lives of those around her.
"There are many points in our lives when we are forced to decide:
Do I speak up, go with the flow, or walk away," notes Staci
Sabarsky, Innovocative's producing artistic director. "It is
harder to speak up and open yourself up to the potential consequences,
but that's exactly what this play is asking Maddie - and us
in the audience - to do."
"Anti-immigrant sentiment is nothing new to our culture," says
director Dawn Truax, director of education outreach at Tampa's
Stageworks Theatre. "It seems to peak in times of fear and uncertainty-like
the Great Depression. The question is, how will we handle the
instances of anti-immigrant behavior that we witness?"
Research indicates that fostering empathy and timely peer intervention
are two key strategies in addressing bullying. The Hundred
Dresses emphasizes both. "As artists, the most powerful
thing we do is cultivate empathy," Truax observes. "If you tell
a story well, with sympathetic characters, that's a real starting
point-and that's what we as theater types do best."
Truax leads a multi-generational cast including Georgia Grenon
as Maddie, Emery J. Wynne as Wanda and Madison Levine as Peggy.
The cast also includes Alec Anderson, Preston Maeda, Alyssa
Black-Diamond and adult actors Larry Corwin, Madeleine Krebs,
Staci Sabarsky and Blake Smallen.
Innovocative Theater continues its tradition of partnering with
civic organizations and community leaders to address the social
issues raised in our productions and extend the conversations
about them off stage.
The Hillsborough County School Board and the Seminole Heights
Branch Library, a member of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public
Library System, have provided substantive production support
for The Hundred Dresses.
In addition, the Friends of the Seminole Heights Branch Library
are sponsoring a special benefit performance on August 1, and
two free "Anti-Bullying Lunch and Learn" workshops for families,
led by school psychologist Dr. Donna Berghauser, July 20 and
August 3. Free copies of The Hundred Dresses will be
distributed at the workshops.
Post-matinee performance talkbacks with experts and activists
in the field, another Innovocative tradition, continue during
this production. After the August 3 matinee, Dr. Oliver T. Massey
from University of Southern Florida's Child and Family Studies
department and the Hillsborough County Anti-Bullying Advisory
Committee will host a dialogue with Cameron Burris, MSW, from
The Centre for Women, Inc. On August 10, psychiatrist Dr. Marketa
Wills joins executive director Freddy Barton from Safe and Sound
Hillsborough.
Stageworks Theater, Tampa's longest-running professional theater
company, hosts Innovocative Theatre's productions at its Channel
District venue on Kennedy Boulevard.
What people are saying:
Creative Loafing's Cathy Salustri called our hard-hitting
January production of Columbinus "a tremendous production."
Peter Nason's Broadway World review of the docu-drama
based on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School praised
"one hell of a cast that takes us on one hell of a ride" in
a "brilliantly realized and immensely powerful" show.
Groove Magazine's Deborah Bostock-Kelley raved, "You can't
just see Columbinus, when this cast makes you feel every
breath of it… Everything - from casting, blocking, set, sound
and lighting - came together in a way that was illuminating,
heartbreaking, and completely and utterly disturbing."
DATES:
Friday, August 2, 2019 at 7 pm
Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 3 and 7 pm
Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 3 pm
Friday, August 9, 2019 at 7 pm
Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 3 and 7 pm
Sunday, August 11, 2019 at 3 pm
VENUE: Stageworks Theater, 1120 E. Kennedy Blvd., West
Building #151, Tampa (Directions
& Map)
TICKETS: $20 adult/$15 student--general admission, Tickets
available at http://stageworkstheatre.org
INFORMATION: http://innovocativetheatre.org
Innovocative Theatre's
production of The Hundred Dresses runs Friday,
August 2 through Sunday, August 11 at Stageworks Theater, at
1120 E. Kennedy Blvd., West Building #151, Tampa. Tickets are
$20 adult/$15 student--general admission, available at http://stageworkstheatre.org.
For more information, go to http://innovocativetheatre.org.