Hotchner winner Killing Women to be featured by PAD

By Liam Otten

People are capable of the most astounding changes. But housewife to hit-woman? In seven days flat?

Such is the challenge posed by junior Marisa Wegrzyn's darkly comic Killing Women, winner of the 2001 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Competition.

Photo by David Kilper

Killing Women, junior Marisa Wegrzyn's darkly comic look at the world of professional hit-women, debuts in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre April 17-21. Pictured are (from left) senior Anne Erickson as Abby; playwright Wegrzyn; senior Allison Koop as Lucy; and junior Erica Nagel as Gwen.

The annual competition is sponsored by the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences and selects one student work for full theatrical production each year. (Winners chosen the year prior to performance and playwrights spend the interim refining scripts and participating in the annual A.E. Hotchner Play Development Lab each fall.)

Performances of Killing Women are at 8 p.m. April 17-18, at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. April 20, and at 2 p.m. April 21 in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre, Mallinckrodt Student Center, Room 208.

Killing Women centers on the character of Abby (senior Anne Erickson), a driven yet principled professional in the traditionally male-dominated world of murder-for-hire. Now gunning for promotion, Abby is dispatched to revenge a recently departed colleague but soon discovers the man's killer to be his own wife, Gwen (junior Erica Nagel), an almost terminally nice young mother left few options by her philandering scoundrel of a husband.

Abby, who to this point has only killed men, begins to see Gwen as a potential protégé and is granted, with sister-in-arms Lucy (senior Allison Koop), seven days to complete Gwen's transformation from civilian to assassin. Or else.

"Abby is very forceful, has a bit of a temper and likes to get stuff done," said Wegrzyn, who is majoring in drama and English, both in Arts & Sciences. "She's not the kind of person to stop at roadblocks, though at times she's a bit clueless about other people." Gwen, meanwhile, "is mostly concerned about her 5-year-old daughter."

Killing Women Who: Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences What: Play by Marisa Wegrzyn, winner of the 2001 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Competition Where: A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre, Mallinckrodt Student Center, Room 208 When: 8 p.m. April 17-18; 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. April 20; 2 p.m. April 21 Tickets: $8 for University faculty, staff and students and for senior citizens; $12 for the general public. Available at the Edison Theatre Box Office, 935-6543, and all MetroTix outlets. For more information, call 935-6543

William J. Whitaker, senior artist-in-residence in the PAD, who directs the six-member cast, said, "This is really a nifty piece of playwriting about women in the workplace. Rather than tell a straightforward story about making compromises in the business world, Marisa has created a kind of outrageous hyperbole that just pushes the whole question of Wall Street-style ruthlessness into the stratosphere."

Still, Whitaker explained that for all the black humor and glittering gunmetal, "the central question is, Do women in the workplace need to behave the same way men do?" Lucy, for example, prefers poison needles to macho pistols, easing her victims into an almost relaxing final sleep. And ultimately, Abby's dilemma boils down to figuring out just how far she'll go to stay "one of the boys."

Wegrzyn was previously runner-up in the 2000 Hotchner competition for her Polar Bears on U.S. 41, which the author describes as "the story of a young woman who conversed with alphabet soup and the man who comes into her life." In a rare honor, both Polar Bears and Killing Women were selected for further development by the prestigious WordBRIDGE Playwrights Lab at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Killing Women also stars senior Micah Bevitz as Johnny Duke (among other characters), as well as junior Charlie Olson as Ramone and senior Sam O'Connell as Mike Sanders. Costumes and sets are designed by senior Kate Strembicki and junior Cassandra Beaver, respectively.

A.E. Hotchner, a 1940 graduate of the University, is the author of numerous screenplays, novels, plays and memoirs, including the 1966 volume Papa Hemingway, which recounts his long friendship with the famous writer. His memoir, King of the Hill, which recounts growing up in St. Louis, was made into a feature film in 1993.

Tickets for Killing Women are $8 for University faculty, staff and students and for senior citizens; $12 for the general public. Tickets are available at the Edison Theatre Box Office, 935-6543, and all MetroTix outlets. For more information, call 935-6543.