First, thank you for coming. You chose to show up, dress up, mask up, and be a part of this experience. So, on behalf of all of us who have been working on this production - some of us since the spring - Thank You.  I’m glad you’re here.

 

I hope you leave the show knowing, or sensing, that you heard Truth here today. The theatre isn’t about pretending; it’s a place to reveal ourselves. The theatre exposes who we are, were, and might be, in intimate and daring ways, and we the audience bear witness to these revelations. Whether by conjuring a memory from the past, or a hope for (or fear of) the future, watching others tell the truth activates our hearts. In the theatre, we share these experiences together in real time and space.

 

Sarah DeLappe (playwright) said in an interview that she grew up watching old war movies and knowing this helped ground my shaping of this story. War movies are not about war any more than sports movies are about sports. They’re about the team, the platoon, the band of warriors who fight together for a common purpose: to win together. "The Wolves" is about just this as told by a team of teenage soccer players.  We’ll hear about their bodies, their urges, their heartbreaks, their dreams, their families without filter or apology and replete with F-bombs.  DeLappe said, “I was interested in having a story filled with young [people] in which they weren’t girlfriends or daughters or love interests or sexual objects, but where they were athletes.”  How do these warriors on a team called "Wolves" fight to win together while being ferociously themselves?  Which ones do you know?  Which one are you?

 

My North Star during this production process is a line in the Rudyard Kipling poem, "The Law of the Jungle:"

 

“…for the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,

And the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

 

Wolves are wild, but damn are they organized. Every Wolf in a Pack has a purpose: the leaders, the lone rangers, the scouts, the tag-teamers, the mamas, the elders, the adolescents.  Each one having its unique and complementary strengths finds its purpose as part of the collective and by being fully themselves.  Together, they form a multi-faceted organism that is functional, protective, versatile, living as one. The Pack becomes its own entity. People too are Pack animals. We need each other and suffer when we don’t have one another.  If we do not show up fully, in a space where it is not only welcome but necessary to do so, the Pack as a whole is weakened.  Dimming our individual light holds back the full potential of the collective — the strength of the Pack is the Wolf.  Likewise, it is our collective that can support us when we struggle, falter, and triumph — the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

 

Another touchstone I’ve carried throughout this process is the adage “Life goes on.”  This seems a vinegary one, kinda cold, cruel, with an air of a “get over it” dismissal.  I think this is the worst and least talked about part of grief and loss: simply that Life goes on. We have to keep going, functioning, feeding the kids, walking the dog, going to work, doing our homework. We have to keep interacting, and conversing, sorting out business affairs, and navigating relationships. I wanted to highlight this in "The Wolves;" that even when there is great loss — on the field or otherwise — we keep striving to win, we keep on keepin' on, and sometimes we’re messy, crude, or in tatters while doing it.  A Pack understands this; it forgives us and allows us and supports that messiness.  There’s room for it and time for it and we go on together.  It is us Living Life that honors what we’ve lost, who we miss, what we wish to have back or do differently.  We cannot be separated from Life any more than a Dancer can be separated from the Dance.  It isn’t just Life that goes on; it is Us.

 

I thank my own Pack - my family, friends, and colleagues. I’m a different Wolf in each of these Packs, and it has been a joy to have the support, encouragement, and expectation that I show up fully to this process and every other aspect of my life with whatever I’ve been given to share. Thank you to the University of Redlands Women's Soccer Team players and coaches -- you helped us bring authenticity and compassion to our work onstage.  Thanks to this crew and technical team, whose guidance, support, sense of humor, and expertise made my watercolor visions into something that you get see and experience in real time and space. Thanks to this cast of actors, who’ve worked very hard, not only for themselves but for each other. Watching them work, play, grow and share their genius has been an honor.  And thanks to my teachers. I am the artist and teacher I am today because of you. I share bravely because you taught me that it is my purpose in the Pack to do so.

 

I dedicate this work to the Wolves I love and the Wolves I’ve lost. This one’s for you.

 

Enjoy the show! May it inspire you in your own Packs to show up shining fully and ready to tell the Truth.

 

With gratitude,

Allison