Heroes and villians and puppets share the stage in fall play - AroundtheO

Before “Stranger Things,” determination was “She Kills Monsters,” a 2011 coming-of-age drama-comedy brimming with Mind Flayers and Bulettes, besides known arsenic landsharks, and an array of different monsters and heroes drawn from the fashionable role-play crippled Dungeons & Dragons.

Celebrating its 10-year anniversary, the fashionable Qui Nguyen play, staged astir 800 times successful precocious schoolhouse and assemblage theatre departments astir the country, opens University Theatre’s 2022-23 play connected Nov. 4 astatine the Robinson Theatre.

Shows volition beryllium Nov. 4, 5, 11, 12, 18 and 19 astatine 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 13 astatine 2 p.m.

The play follows a young pistillate who, aft losing her household successful a car crash, discovers a module her younger sister had written for the Dungeons & Dragons game. With the assistance of a Dungeon Master, phantasy and world collide arsenic she immerses herself successful the crippled and discovers however small she knew astir her sibling.

Through the magic of theater, the crippled not lone comes to beingness onstage, but besides provides ample opportunities for the formed and crew’s creativity to tally wild.

The archetypal program was to usage lone puppets, but subordinate prof and costume decorator Jeanette DeJong suggested blending actors and puppets with the usage of costumes.

“We’ll beryllium utilizing a assortment of puppets and actors successful ample costumes and puppet appendages,” said Department of Theatre Arts subordinate prof and play manager Michael Malek Najjar. “It’ll beryllium a substance of costume and puppetry, and that hybridity is what’s going to marque it highly breathtaking and assistance the assemblage instrumentality that leap into virtual world and Dungeons & Dragons.

The play besides volition diagnostic a Tiamat dragon, “a large, elaborate puppet that each of the puppeteers who are playing the different characters and monsters volition manipulate.”

Because battling monsters tin get rather physical, Najjar is enlisting the expertise of section histrion and choreographer Bill Hulings to assistance the actors navigate the aggregate combat scenes. Also volunteering their clip and choreographic skills are 4 UO cheerleaders, headed by Morgan Nguyen, for a cheer-off successful the play which pits the heroine against a mates of evil cheerleader succubae successful a “Bring It On”-style telephone and effect segment.

On opening night, patrons are encouraged to articulation successful the D&D amusive and travel dressed successful their favourite cosplay outfits.

Although monsters play a ascendant role, the play besides addresses deeper issues relating to bullying, identity, disablement and the ordeal that precocious schoolhouse tin be.

“In the existent satellite determination are precocious schoolhouse students who are conscionable trying to marque it done each the crummy things precocious schoolers person to look — the discrimination, the taunting, the bullying, homophobia, the carnal limitations that immoderate of them have,” Najjar said.

The challenge, helium said, is however to marque some worlds viable.

“It asks a decorator to not lone deliberation astir D&D arsenic a genre,” Najjar said, “but to besides deliberation astir if 1 was surviving successful the existent satellite and had a D&D avatar, what would beryllium the transportation beryllium betwixt their real-world aforesaid and their D&D character?”

For instance, 1 quality successful the play has cerebral palsy and uses crutches successful the existent world, but successful the satellite of Dungeons & Dragons helium becomes a fierce elf fighter.

“The solution,” helium said, “was to person the elf unit helium uses travel isolated and abstracted into 2 antithetic staffs which transmute backmost into the crutches.”

As the main quality immerses herself successful the game, she learns that her sister, who was gay, had created a satellite wherever that was not an issue, wherever radical were accepted for who they were, and by creating an avatar “self” she and her friends could beryllium the radical they couldn’t beryllium successful the existent world.

“The monsters are fun,’ said Najjar, “but the connection of the play intelligibly is to inquire ourselves if we are arsenic open-minded and tolerant arsenic we deliberation we are, and ultimately, tin we make a existent satellite that is much inclusive?”

Advance tickets are available online, by telephone astatine 541-346-4363 and astatine the Erb Memorial Union summons office, oregon 1 hr anterior to the amusement successful the Miller Theatre Complex lobby. Tickets are escaped for UO students, $10 for adults, and $8 for UO module and unit members, seniors 65 and older, youths successful grades K-12, and non-UO assemblage students.

—By Sharleen Nelson, University Communications