playbill vip

Director’s Notes:

            The play Decision Height by Meredith Dayna Levy is a historical drama which follows as group of women who, during World War II, leave their conventional world to train for the Women Airforce Service Pilots program (WASPS), in Sweetwater, Texas.  As a director at a woman’s college, I am always searching for plays which have a strong female protagonist and in which our students can hopefully relate to as well as learn from. This play provided the opportunity for the students to do both! This is a story about women fulfilling roles that were reserved for men and soaring both literally and figuratively to heights that were not previously available to women in the 1940s.

The play provides historical context to the women Airforce pilots which were established during World War II, on August 5, 1943. 1,074 women served in the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, during World War II. The WASPs completed a rigorous training program at Avenger Field in Texas, then served in non-combat military missions across the US during the war, such as ferrying planes from factories to bases and flight-testing aircraft. The WASPS flew a total of 60 million miles performing a variety of missions. Although these women flew military aircraft, they were considered civilians, and were not granted military benefits or burials. From 1943 to 1944, 38 WASP died in service to their country. Referring to themselves as “Avenger Girls,” the Women Airforce Service Pilots were superheroes of aviation. They were the first women to fly for the US military, paving the way for women to serve equally in the US Air Force.

These sisters, in flight suits, left their homes to pursue opportunities to serve their country and to do something women had never done before.  This play is about their reasons for coming, often against the will of their families, and the impact their decision has on their immediate lives and futures. Our students relate to these women as they pursue their own dreams and ambitions. Having left home and traveled far from home to pursue their own ambitions, many students understand that they are also reaching for the stars to fulfill jobs normally reserved for males.

“You don't need legislation to prove something...you can be whatever you set your heart and head to be, and don't let anybody tell you can't be, because 1078 women pilots did it in World War II.”

–Annelle Henderson Bulechek, WASP 44-W-2

The play’s title refers to a critical altitude at which point, in times of distress, a pilot must decide whether or not to land a plane. It is a concept that applies both literally and metaphorically to the play’s characters. A dream can be achieved but taken away just as easily. The WASP program disbanded in December 1944, eight months before the end of World War II. It was the only branch of women’s service in WWII to not receive military status during the war and the only branch to be disbanded before the war ended. On November 23, 1977, more than 30 years after the WASP program started, President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 95-202 giving the women who served as civilian Airforce pilots during WWII veteran status. In 2009, President Barack Obama signed a bill to award the WASPs Congressional Gold Medals, one of the highest civilian honors awarded by the United States Congress.

I dedicate this production to my grandfather Louis Cecil Chaney, a navy pilot in WWII II and my grandmother; Edith May (Crogan) Kerley-Hardy, who always wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force. She was born in 1919 and wanted to serve in the war as a pilot but her mother forbid her. As we listen to the stories of these brave women, many who enlisted, without support of their families, I am impressed with the courage it must have taken particularly in the 40’s. My wish is that the audience and cast leave filling inspired to chase their dreams and reach for the stars.