WAM Theatre's New Girls Ensemble to Perform, 12/11

The public is invited to a free performance by WAM Theatre's new Girls Ensemble on Friday, December 11, 2015 at 7pm in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox.

Six young women ages 14-20 have been meeting on Saturday afternoons since September to create a new piece of devised theatre under the leadership of WAM teaching artists Amy Brentano and Barby Cardillo. Current participants are from Lenox, Lee, Dalton, North Adams, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The Girls Ensemble performance on December 11 runs about an hour and is suitable for ages 10 and up.

"WAM has expanded its education program this year with the launch of the Girls Ensemble," Brentano explained. "Our participants are dancers, writers, actors, and visual artists with an interest in creating theatre from scratch. This year's pilot program has focused on investigating the gender stereotypes and labels that surround teenage girls, and asking questions around empowerment and self image."

"The girls have engaged in impassioned discussions as they improvised scenes and wrote monologues," Cardillo said. "Amy and I have had the pleasure to guide and direct these girls as they created an exciting theatre piece that includes music, dance, and text."

Cardillo also shared her excitement over the WAM education program that she leads at Girls Inc in Pittsfield, which concluded its third fall semester with a private process sharing for family and friends on November 24. "I worked with eight girls ages 8-11 and this past semester we focused on creating characters. Since they all chose fairy tale characters, they named our sharing A Girls Inc Fairy Tale and it included movement-based character improvisations, vocal warm-ups, improvised and scripted scenes, theatre games, music, and improvised dance."

Next semester Cardillo and the Girls Inc participants will work on creating a linear narrative using these characters, in whom they have invested so much time and energy.

Seed funding for this program has been provided by multi-year grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Greylock Federal Credit Union, the Dylandale Foundation, the International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA) and Petricca Industries as well as a grant from the Feigenbaum Foundation, Interprint and various local cultural councils.

Additionally, this is an ISTA (International Schools Theatre Association) endorsed project. Based in the United Kingdom, ISTA brings together young people, artists and teachers from different countries in different settings to experience, create and learn about theatre. ISTA produces over 50 international arts events each year. WAM Theatre is one of two projects ISTA endorses as part of their ISTA Connect program. The other program is in Kolkata, India. WAM aims to bring the Girls Ensemble participants to an ISTA event within five years www.ISTA.co.uk