BWW Blog: Tara Folio - Interrogating the Assassins: Introducing Girl Power

There's always more than one side to every story, and this production of Assassins is no different. To make sure I'm covering this show from every possible angle, I've decided to annoy my fellow casemates with a recorder and a series of important questions about their experiences (and I really do mean I annoyed them, considering I followed them around between classes to get their answers).

I have to admit that this article may be a tad bias simply because the first person I chose to feature is my best friend, Hannah Rae Faulk (but I swear, I have a great reason behind it). Hannah Rae is also a senior majoring in musical theater at Auburn, and she has been given a very unique opportunity in this production: she will be the first actress to ever play the role of the "Proprietor" in Assassins. Hannah Rae will be following in the footsteps of Patina Miller, who took the world by storm as the first female actress to play the "Lead Player" in Pippin (I'm loving this theatrical girl power). Considering the intriguing and rather daunting challenge this actress has ahead of her, I wanted to get her thoughts on what she has in mind for this production.

T: What are your feelings on starting the Assassins rehearsal process?

HR: "Ooh well, that's kind of a hard question. I think it's really cool to do a show like this around election time. I think it's a difficult time in America, so it's interesting to have a perspective on both the positive and negative sides of American history. I feel like people are so focused on the media and trivial things around politics, and people never really look into the core issues of what is going on in America."

T: This show is so rooted in American history, how did that effect your research process?

HR: "Starting Assassins, it's really cool to start doing research as a cast and be able to look into history together. You really notice the brokenness of the country, and you notice how important it is that we realize that people that are broken, are broken for a reason. In a way, figuratively speaking, any one of us is susceptible to being an assassin; if we had the same background or were treated how these people were treated, it's not unimaginable. It's a very convicting and scary thing."

T: What were your initial thoughts when you found out you would be performing as the first-ever female "Proprietor"?

HR: "Super pumped. Well, no, first I was like, 'well...this is weird. How is this going to work?'. I think it's exciting to have a female be the storyteller of the negative, more aggressive side of history. There's two voices, the positive side [the voice of America], and then there's my character, who's more of the evil, dark and twisted side. It's so cool to give a female that much power during a musical like this. It's going to be really fun to try and make the 'Proprietor' sexy, you know?"

T: What do you think your greatest challenge will be during this process?

HR: "It's certainly going to be hard to feel united as a cast. This is such an emotionally draining show; it's extremely dark material with a bit of humor in the mix. It is also wildly individualistic, so we will all have to work to approach the entire story as a group of storytellers and not as individuals. I feel lucky because my character, she knows the whole story and guides it along, but for the assassins and ensemble it's bits and pieces. I'm worried that it will be difficult to keep the cast together and keep the same attitude about the show. We need to remember why we're doing this, and what we're doing it for."

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