Student-directed Play Explores Subversive Fairytales

The Theatre Department’s fall lab show, “The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls,” will be performed at 8 p.m. Oct. 27-29 in Ophelia Parrish’s Black Box Theatre.

“The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls” follows Annie, a young adult returning to native Russia to lose her American accent. Underneath a glamorous post-Soviet Moscow studded with dangerously high heels and riches galore, she discovers an enchanted motherland teeming with evil stepmothers, wicked witches and ravenous bears. Annie must learn how to become the heroine of a story more mysterious and treacherous than any childhood fairy tale: her own. The subversive story haunts the audience and carries a powerful message for young women living in a world where not everything lives happily ever after.

Theatre Department lab shows provide students with an opportunity to take complete responsibility for a production. The steering committee selects a play and director from numerous submissions during the semester. This semester’s production is directed by senior theatre major Ann Acklen Brown of St. Louis, Mo. Her work throughout the years has been focused on directing. Brown's directing credits include IPAC’s production of “Woyzeck,” assistant directing “Hamlet” and directing the one-act “Vanilla Crescents.”

All performances are free and open to the public.