Thoughts From the Director
I took on the role of Director of the play Junk Girls as I was watching the news with talks of the United States leaving Afghanistan after a long bloody war that can only be called an utter failure. I found myself ruminating on how we got here. 7000 American troops dead, thousands more wounded. Estimates of over 240,000 civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and over 6.4 trillion dollars spent. War is often such a distant thing for Americans that we can compartmentalism it. It doesn’t happen here and therefore maybe it’s not really happening anywhere. But the human toll is real.
America has lost young men and women and every loss reverberates, from cramped apartments in Brooklyn to flat stretches of corn in the Midwest. I felt that as I read through the script and I want the audience to feel that as they watch the play unfold. I want them to think about our imprint as Americans on the world. We have left behind in Afghanistan, along with the tanks, barbed wire, and abandoned bases a generation of orphans who will remember us. This is our legacy. I was drawn to Junk Girls because it doesn’t hide from this legacy. Our troops are courageous citizens but war is ugly and by its very nature it is corrosive. Junk Girls explores how far that reach travels. The reach of trauma and neglect, the impact on families, on children, and parents.
For me Junk Girls is about every one of those numbers written above. Every one of those numbers has a name and history and a future that was taken from them in the name of freedom. I wanted to direct Junk Girls because as a veteran of the Marines who joined during the big push into Afghanistan I remember so vividly the array of emotions we felt. I wanted to bring those emotions to the stage in a way that was authentic. I was fortunate to be blessed with an incredible cast who has trusted me every step of the way.
We hope you enjoy the play and are as moved by it as we were creating it.
