UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State Centre Stage (PSCS) will present Sarah DeLappe’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play “The Wolves,” about a high school girls’ indoor soccer team tackling issues big and small, Oct. 27–Nov. 7 at the Pavilion Theatre on the University Park campus. PSCS is the professional arm of the School of Theatre in the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State.
The one-act play, which runs 90 minutes, takes place during the girls’ warm-up, when they discuss issues ranging from global politics to eating disorders to trivial gossip and pop culture. Directed by Christine O’Grady, “The Wolves” will be presented Oct. 27 (preview), Oct. 29 (preview), Oct. 30 (opening night), and Nov. 3–7 at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee at 2 p.m. on Nov. 7. A pre-show reception and discussion with the designers will be held on Oct. 30 at 6 p.m. (purchase tickets separately).
“’The Wolves’ offers a bird’s-eye view of young women becoming themselves — trying things on, challenging one another, making mistakes, and making sense of a world that can feel both full of possibility and impossibly complicated,” said O’Grady. “Directing a new generation of young women while revisiting my own memories of high school and playing soccer has been a powerful reminder that, even as the world around us grows more complicated, women continue to find strength and identity in connection with one another.”
“The Wolves” takes place entirely on a single patch of AstroTurf on an indoor field, but the audience never sees a game. The focus is on the teenage girls and their far-ranging discussions at a time when they are discovering who they are.
In their dramaturgy note, Samuel Yates, assistant professor of theater, explained that there is no final score in the play, as in life:
“The world these girls are entering is larger than what they can presently see, just as their lives are already larger than their present understanding of them. For 90 minutes, DeLappe keeps us with them in the interval before the game begins because the warm-up for life’s bigger stages is not what happens before the event. It is the work of living.”
Ticket prices are evenings, $27; preview/matinee, $24; student, $19. Purchase tickets via the Arts Ticket Center online, by phone at 814-863-0255, or in person at Eisenhower Auditorium (M–F, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.).