The School of Dramatic Arts returns to in-person performances

On Thursday night, the School of Dramatic Arts, or SDA, will hold its first in-person performance since the COVID-19 outbreak. Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves follows a competitive women’s high school soccer team, navigating the transition from adolescence to womanhood. Madeline Horowitz spoke with the director Sabra Williams and actors Tali Green and Daisy Tichenor.

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British actress and activist Sabra Williams is thrilled to be directing the Wolves.

SABRA WILLIAMS: The script is just a gift. An incredible, beautiful script, about young women coming of age and, you know, dealing with the world and all the difficulties of that. The cast are an absolute dream. They are just like, the most beautiful, talented, there’s like no resistance at all. They’re super flexible and just beautiful, beautiful people.

Daisy Tichenor is playing number seven, the striker. Now a senior majoring in theatre, Tichenor has been wanting to be a part of this play since she first read it in high school.

DAISY TICHENOR: It was the first time I saw, I heard or read real female friendships and real female conversations, depicted accurately and without judgment. And without a male gaze or without adult gaze, or without this filter of trying to critique them for what they’re doing, or adjust it and make it something more palatable or interesting, or standing up to a certain culture. And so to me this play is like the ultimate representation of young womanhood

Williams is proud to give young women a voice.

WILLIAMS: I think you have an opportunity here to hear the reality of teenage young women as they start to discover who they are and what the world is and where they fit into it. And so I hope that the audience will have more compassion and understanding for young women and what they’re going through.

Tali Green, a senior majoring in theatre, is playing number double zero, the goalie. Green and Tichenor are excited about the cast of all women.

TALI GREEN: It’s literally so fun. We’re all so close, and love each other. [...] There’s no drama, there’s no animosity, everyone loves each other. Everyone’s so supportive. I feel so comfortable around them.

DAISY TICHENOR: There’s a sort of raw acknowledgment of truth and pain that I think you don’t get all the time in, in a different sort of space. I think that women know that pain is, is innate, and there’s a part of the human experience, and that also like pain can give birth to joy, and art and love. And so it felt like nothing was off-limits during the rehearsal process.

The play is many of the performers’ first time on stage since the COVID-19 outbreak. Green and Tichenor especially missed the connection with a live audience.

GREEN: Just like the energy, the reactions, being able to like, feel that like immediate connection with the audience ... is something you can’t do over zoom. So yeah, even when we performed for the crew, the first time they came, it was just like, so fun to have someone there.

TICHENOR: Yeah, I don’t I don’t think that online theater needs to live on. When the real thing is just so much better. Yeah, but also, I do kind of wish people could see it. It was nice that everyone could see zoom shows.

As the first performance back since the COVID-19 outbreak, Williams is excited to bring new traditions to SDA theaters, including paying tribute to the Tongva people.

WILLIAMS: I’m glad that this is the first production for USC back, but I hope that we can acknowledge that the people are still here, we’re on stolen land, and that we should honor their lives and the lives of people who have gone before our elders and our ancestors on this land.

The performance will be debut on Thursday, with several showtimes throughout the weekend. All LA County and USC COVID-19 guidelines will be followed.