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Nancy Churnin:
'Wrestling Season' pins down real issues
05:01 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 3, 2005
Ten years ago, the oldest of Laurie Brooks' three girls was 16. And Ms.
Brooks, who had already written several well-received children's plays,
couldn't find theater that would engage Joanna. So she decided to write
it: The Wrestling Season.
Inspired by conversations with hundreds of teens, the play tackles the
issue of rumors and the way kids struggle when people make up stuff about
them. The rumors, which fly over the course of several wrestling matches, get
pretty nasty, too. There are accusations of one girl being loose,
another having an eating disorder and a couple of boys being homosexual. Some
lead to violence.
"When I wrote this play, I didn't think anyone would be brave enough to
produce it," says Ms. Brooks. "I thought I was going to write this play
because I had to. No one was more surprised than I when it won national
prizes."
Mark Oristano
Jennifer Knight and Andy Bean in The Wrestling Season. The Dallas
Children's Theater, which staged the acclaimed national premiere of a later Brooks
play, Deadly Weapons, in 2002, will present The Wrestling Season from
Friday through May 22 at the Rosewood Center for Family Arts.
The show, for ages 13 and older, kicks off the company's first Young
Adult Festival of Dramatic Works, which will include readings of plays aimed
at teens, including Everyday Heroes, another work by Ms. Brooks.
Ms. Brooks, who lives in Long Island, N.Y., and is in residence at the
Coterie Theatre in Kansas City, Mo., will come to Dallas to launch the
opening of the show. On Sunday she will inaugurate the Dallas Theater
Leagues' new series, Conversation With the Artist. She will speak from
3 to 4:30 p.m. at the Rosewood Center.
Robyn Flatt, DCT's executive artistic director, says she was impressed
by how Deadly Weapons reached teen audiences and looks forward to The
Wrestling Season continuing that.
"Teens are beyond fairy tales," she says. "They want to see something
that addresses the issues that trouble them. They want a safe place where
they can bring some of their questions into the daylight."
At the Coterie, Ms. Brooks is developing an idea she introduced with
The Wrestling Season. She is designing guided discussion forums that follow
the plays. "The point is to avoid drive-by theater," she says. "When you
raise big issues, there's a big responsibility to process them."
Her plays and the discussions that follow are purposefully open-ended,
she says. During the play, she never tells the audience if the rumors that
cause so much trouble are true. During the forum, she doesn't tell kids who
was right and who was wrong or why. She has the actors, who stay in
character,ask questions that get the audience thinking.
"Young people are so sick of being told what to do. They've got to find
their own way. ... All you've got to do is give them material that
lives in their world, and they'll respond to it."
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5/3/05
MARQUETTE - The United States Olympic Education Center men's Greco-Roman and women's freestyle wrestling teams found success this past weekend at the 2005 U.S. Senior National Championships in Las Vegas.
The U.S. Nationals is the first senior national tournament qualifier for the world championships.
The women's team qualified 10 out of a possible 12 positions for the World Team Trials. The World Trials will take place June 18-19 in Ames, Iowa, with the winners advancing to the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Sharon Jacobson (55 kilograms), Brandy Rosenbrock (59 kg) and Randi Miller (79 kg) took the highest place for the women as they all earned a bronze. Placing fourth was Mary Kelly (51 kg) and Donell Bradley (72 kg).
Head freestyle coach, Shannyn Gillespie said, "I am pleased with this outcome as we nearly qualified all of our entries for the World Team Trials."
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Photos from Nationals(tech-fall.com)