DIRECTOR'S NOTES
Every conversation I have about She Kills Monsters seems to start with a disclaimer: I love this play. I love the wildly off-kilter portrayal of D&D, which somehow in this script feels like a highly-produced video game rather than a bunch of friends rolling dice and telling goofy stories together. I love the caricaturish sidekicks, the over-the-top 90s references, the music that somehow tickles my nostalgia without actually being my own teenage soundtrack. But above all, I love how real it feels.
I have been some of these characters. And I bet you have too. Haven’t we all been a sibling or friend wishing we knew someone more authentically, or a kid who wanted the world to see us as something we couldn’t always perform? We’ve all been scared of people knowing part of us. We have all wished to be faster, stronger, braver. We have parts of us that we wish we could change, and we have parts of us that we wish we were ready to be proud of.
There’s a second disclaimer in many of these conversations. She Kills Monsters doesn’t feel like a Middle School show. With so many technical challenges -- stage combat, pyrotechnics, a literal five-headed dragon -- combined with a really hard-hitting emotional storyline, this is definitely one of the most ambitious plays we’ve ever brought to the MS stage. But at the same time, this is a story that speaks to our younger actors. They’re having those experiences too. They’re feeling the distance between what they’re told is “normal” and where they see themselves, and they're feeling the pressure to bridge that distance whatever the cost. In this play, they have the chance to stare down that pressure to feel ashamed or to hide themselves away, and to say “No, we are not just your expectations. We are something better, something unique and powerful and badass. And we are awesome.”
And you know, I think we all deserve the chance to be totally badass sometimes!
Leo Mahler
Director