2008 Woodie Awards
Casting all women
Ashley Mefford/Activities Reporter
Issue date: 11/12/07 Section: News
Not since 2003 has Eastern had an all women's play.
In 2003, the play "5 Women Wearing the Same Dress" was performed.
Now, women make up the entire cast of "Eleemosynary."
"Eleemosynary" opened this past weekend with shows Friday and Saturday and a matinee on Sunday. It will be shown today and tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Village Theater.
"Eleemosynary," a play by Lee Blessing about three generations of women, is directed by John T. Oertling, chair of the theater arts.
The play goes back and forth between past and present times.
The cast of "Eleemosynary" is made of three characters: Dorothea, the grandmother, played by senior theater arts major Fay Vayner; Artie, the daughter, played by junior elementary education major Allyson Higgins, and Echo, the granddaughter, played by freshman theater arts and communication disorder studies major Mariam Amr.
Dorothea is very optimistic; she always sees the good in everyone. Artie is career-orientated which makes her neglect her daughter Echo. Echo is trying to figure life out living with her grandmother since her mother left.
Echo was interested in spelling bees and would often recite lists of words throughout the play. She used these words to capture a void in her life.
"Certain words literally lift me up to a private altitude," Echo says.
Words are special to Echo.
"Echo loves the way words as a whole make her feel. They are her passion in life and she loves to study them. Spelling the words is not as magical to her because it's just letters alone," Amr said. "When the letters are all brought together to form a word however, there is finally meaning that emerges and Echo finds it so amazing that just a word can symbolize such strong emotions and feelings."
Echo kept vying for her mother's love even after her mother failed her time and time again. But Echo still spells to please her mother.
"The reason Echo spells and does spelling bees is because her mother suggested it. Echo felt that by doing what her mother wanted, it would make her mother like her, or even love her. But really, the spelling is not what Echo loves," Amr said.
In 2003, the play "5 Women Wearing the Same Dress" was performed.
Now, women make up the entire cast of "Eleemosynary."
"Eleemosynary" opened this past weekend with shows Friday and Saturday and a matinee on Sunday. It will be shown today and tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Village Theater.
"Eleemosynary," a play by Lee Blessing about three generations of women, is directed by John T. Oertling, chair of the theater arts.
The play goes back and forth between past and present times.
The cast of "Eleemosynary" is made of three characters: Dorothea, the grandmother, played by senior theater arts major Fay Vayner; Artie, the daughter, played by junior elementary education major Allyson Higgins, and Echo, the granddaughter, played by freshman theater arts and communication disorder studies major Mariam Amr.
Dorothea is very optimistic; she always sees the good in everyone. Artie is career-orientated which makes her neglect her daughter Echo. Echo is trying to figure life out living with her grandmother since her mother left.
Echo was interested in spelling bees and would often recite lists of words throughout the play. She used these words to capture a void in her life.
"Certain words literally lift me up to a private altitude," Echo says.
Words are special to Echo.
"Echo loves the way words as a whole make her feel. They are her passion in life and she loves to study them. Spelling the words is not as magical to her because it's just letters alone," Amr said. "When the letters are all brought together to form a word however, there is finally meaning that emerges and Echo finds it so amazing that just a word can symbolize such strong emotions and feelings."
Echo kept vying for her mother's love even after her mother failed her time and time again. But Echo still spells to please her mother.
"The reason Echo spells and does spelling bees is because her mother suggested it. Echo felt that by doing what her mother wanted, it would make her mother like her, or even love her. But really, the spelling is not what Echo loves," Amr said.
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