The staged reading of “Uncommon Women and Others” filled the lobby of the Kleist Center for Art & Drama with female camaraderie and joy on Oct. 25-26.
Written by Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein, “Uncommon Women and Others” centers on eight women who are soon-to-be college graduates from Mount Holyoke College during the second wave of the feminist movement.
Directed for BW by Adjunct Professor of Theater Jessie Cope Miller, this play explores the changing identities of women during this time period, and the friends speak to each other very candidly about their friendships, romantic relationships and growing older.
“They’re all very dynamic, unique personalities,” Miller said. “They’re all grappling with the worry and the fear of what’s going to happen after college, which I think is really relevant and relatable to students today. It doesn’t really matter, you know, what generation you’re part of.”
Miller said she was very intentional about casting the show in a way that matches the personalities of the actors and characters together. While the actors would need to research pop culture references of the time, their character work would mostly focus on finding how to bring themselves to the women they are portraying.
“I’m kind of proud of the ways in which I think these students and these women can just be themselves in the roles without having to do a whole lot,” Miller said. “It was like, ‘All I really want you to do is just be yourself and just tell the story of this person. You already embody the characteristics of this specific type of this uncommon woman.’”
Sophomore acting and directing student Mikayla Adamission, who plays Muffet, said that the more she dug deep to understand her character, the more she found herself relating to her.
“I found myself relating to her a lot because a huge part of her arc is she really, really wants to be loved and find love, but she also finds comfortability in being alone and being able to support herself,” Adamission said. “I feel like I relate to that a lot because everyone wants to be loved, truly, but also [it’s] perfectly okay to be alone.”
“Uncommon Women and Others” is a part of the Conservatory of the Performing Arts’ staged reading series, which are held in the lobby of the Kleist. While the production did not have an elaborate set, the students used some props and moved around in the space.
“I think the most important thing is to just allow the audience to hear the text, to hear the story,” Miller said. “It’s always tempting to want to add more elements of storytelling, like props and costumes, but to keep it as simple and as bare bones as possible is sort of the goal.”
Sophomore BFA acting student Sallee Collins, who plays Rita, said that doing a staged reading was an interesting process because they had a very short rehearsal period. The play is not meant to be a “polished piece” that is fully fleshed out, and she really enjoyed this approach.
“In a lot of acting classes, you’re trained to memorize the lines first,” Collins said. “But since [in] staged readings you’re not supposed to be memorized, because they’re supposed to be such a quick turnaround, you have to figure out how to navigate with a book in your hand.”
Adamission said: “It’s very difficult because I found myself wanting to focus more on the words, but I really shouldn’t be. … That’s what made the process so difficult but also challenged me in such an incredible way as an actor.”
“Uncommon Women and Others” was chosen by students on the play selection committee during the previous academic year, and it touches on subjects that are very common in the college experience, particularly for women.
Collins said that the play has no overarching plot. Rather, it focuses on the conversations between these women and their relationships with each other and those around them.
“Everybody talks about, in theater, the stories that never get to be told,” Collins said, “but I generally don’t know a lot of pieces of media that are focused on the lives and the interactions of women only.”
Adamission said that the cast has formed great relationships with each other, which helped her to also feel the connection that her character has with the other women in the show.
“We’re all such a tight knit bunch of individuals and uncommon women,” Adamission said, “so it’s been so nice getting to navigate those friendships within my own castmates to make that.”
Collins said she hopes female-identifying audiences members feel a connection to the characters and see themselves and their friends represented by the actors. She also hopes that non-female-identifying audience members come to this show and gain insight into what it is like to be a part of a female friend group.
The women in this show take multiple approaches to their post-graduate life. Some settle down and get married, while others let their careers push them forward. Miller said that no matter what they choose to do, what’s important to take away is that these women made the choices about their lives for themselves by themselves.
“What makes you a woman, whether you want to be more career minded or more family minded?” Miller asked. “I think in 2024, what we can all be really grateful for, and walk away with, is that we get to choose.”
“Uncommon Women” performed two shows in the Kleist Center for Art & Drama lobby on Oct. 25-26.
