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AUSTIN, Texas, August 20, 2003 -- Ready? Okay! Be Aggressive, Annie Weisman’s darkly comic journey into the intense world of two 17-year old California cheerleaders, will open the State Theater Company’s 2003-2004 season.
Inspired by Weisman’s own adolescent years in suburban San Diego, the coming-of-age-drama is directed by State artistic director Scott Kanoff and features local favorite, Jenny Larson, and Kira Pozehl (an alumna of the recent reality TV show, “All American Girl”), as Laura and Leslie, two girls about to enter their final year of high school. The hit-and-run death of Laura’s mother provides too close a brush with mortality for the girl’s perky squad mates, who ostracize Laura. As her father and little sister make increasingly costly demands of her time and energy, Laura watches her life begin to slip away. The more ebullient Leslie, born in the South and abandoned by her father, has cultivated a confident facade that masks the pain of her loss and the rigors of her journey across the country (and across the tracks) to a suburban affluence engineered by her lonely, upwardly mobile mother. Facing their senior year (“the last cheer year of life”) relegated yet again to lowly ‘spotter’ positions on the squad, the girls forge a bond and embark on a search for the “Bible Belt Intensity” that will lift their cheerleading, and their lives, to new heights. Slurping Big Gulps and hurtling through the night in the creamy leather comfort of a stolen Lexus, they hit the road, headed for the “Spirit Institute of the South“ and the surprising discoveries that await them there.
"Be Aggressive is an incisively comic, profoundly thoughtful play about the overwhelming urgency
that can characterize teenage life," says director Kanoff. "Annie Weisman is a writer of enormous compassion. She understands that kids today grow up in a culture that subjects them to an unprecedented barrage of cultural noise, much of it insistent, chaotic and violent. How do they develop or acquire the means to process, much less express, elemental feelings like loss?"
Episodic in style, the play mines withering humor from its fractured suburban landscape, a menacing matrix of the
pop clichés and the culture of consumption that so powerfully shape young lives: beauty, popularity, speed, food, fashion, conformity, convenience. Anchored by the metaphor of its protagonists’ intense dedication to cheerleading, the play’s themes deal with many teen issues that have recently landed at the forefront of an American female agenda: self esteem, relational aggression, peer pressure, media influence, and teen-parent relationships to name a few.
Featured in the State Theater’s 1999 Harvest Festival of New Plays, Be Aggressive premiered two seasons
ago at the La Jolla Playhouse and was produced by the Dallas Theater Center last Fall. While much of the play is
comic, it contains mature language and content, and the State Theater Company recommends it for ages 16 and above.
CheerStation, a local cheerleading instruction company, is the Official Cheer Sponsor for the show, and has
been coaching the actors in their cheerleading sequences.
State Theater Company
The State Theater Company is the resident, professional producing company of the Austin Theatre Alliance. The company embarked on an exciting new era of growth three years ago with the addition of award-winning Producing Artistic Director, Scott Kanoff, who has since directed: Dinner with Friends, The Tempest, Anton in Show Business,
Virtual Devotion, The Little Prince, and G.B. Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession. He has also produced Michael Bloom's acclaimed staging of WIT, the world premiere of Austin playwright John Walch's The Dinosaur Within, and acclaimed revivals of The Glass Menagerie and Ionesco's The Chairs. A full history of the State Theater Company can be found at the Austin Theatre Alliance web site.
Austin Theatre Alliance
The Austin Theatre Alliance serves as the parent organization for the State Theater Company and the historic
Paramount Theatre. For more information, visit www.austintheatrealliance.org.
Be Aggressive
Written by Annie Weisman
Directed by Scott Kanoff
Set and Costumes by David Potts
Lighting by Richard Winkler
Cast: Jeny Larson, Kira Pozehl, Lucien Douglas, Tere Meyers, Taylor McPhail, Meg Baumann, Marlowe Moore and
Micaela Garcia-Baab
Show Dates / Times
Runs: September 10 through October 5
Show times: Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sunday matinees, 2:30 p.m.
Preview Performances: Wednesday, September 10 and Thursday, September 11
Opening Night: Friday, September 12
Free special events (Show admission required)
"Downstage" pre-show lecture: Wednesday, September 17 7:00 p.m.
"After The Show" chats with cast and director: Thursdays, September 18 and 25, immediately following the show.
Tickets
All tickets sold for the September 30th performance will benefit GENaustin. For tickets for this performance, call Cheer Station at 452-4337, Monday - Friday 3:30 PM to 8:30 PM. Tickets can be picked up at Cheer Station, 9185 Research Blvd. during the same hours as above, or at the State Theater on the night of the performance. Tickets are $15 each. Payment for tickets must be cash or check (written out to GENaustin) only. Tickets will also be sold at the door at the State Theater.
For tickets for other performances:
Paramount Theatre Box Office Hours: Monday through Sunday, Noon to 5:30 p.m.
Star Tickets: Call 469-SHOW / Online at www.startickets.com /
All Star Ticket outlets
Special Note: Be Aggressive contains mature language and content and is not recommended for ages under 16.
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