Up Next...Directing a Live Play Reading
2021
Programming for Piper’s SPOTLIGHT SERIES is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
GIRL IS MINE by Jane Elias
November 17, 2021 @ 7:30 p.m.
Old Stone House
336 3rd Street | Brooklyn, NY 11215
*Please note: Audience members must show proof of vaccination and wear masks. Audience will be restricted to 40 audience members.
Sixteen-year-old Amanda has been spending time with her English teacher after school. When her father, her boyfriend, and her guidance counselor grow suspect of the relationship, she begins to question everyone’s motives – including her own. How can others know what’s best for you when you don’t yet know who you are?
PLAYWRIGHT STATEMENT: With Girl Is Mine, I am exploring the ways in which our identities emerge through the roles we play in relation to others, either in concert with or in opposition to their agendas. When does a relationship – in this case between father and daughter, boyfriend and girlfriend, teacher and student – cross the line from symbiotic to codependent? From complex to abusive? From mentorship to predation? Is it possible for a sixteen-year-old girl to have complete agency in her relationships with adults? Is it possible to heal an old wound by placing a bandage on a new one? For me so much in this play (as in the outside world) lives in a gray area: in what goes unsaid, in what’s almost said, and in what nearly happens. How much clarity and resolution is really necessary in order to move forward? I am grateful to Piper Theatre and this group of artists for working collaboratively to navigate these spaces as I continue to develop this play. ~ J. E.
JANE ELIAS is an actor and writer based in Brooklyn. Most recent: world premiere of Mark Medoff’s Time and Chance (Rio Grande Theatre, Las Cruces, NM). Other theater includes Do This One Thing for Me (solo play by JE: Estrogenius Fest, Access Theater, Secret Theatre, TBG Theater, & NY Fringe), Hamlet and As You Like It (Theater at Woodshill, Utica, NY), and the NYC premiere of Arlene Hutton’s Letters to Sala (Barrow Group). Jane’s play Baby Steps was a finalist for the City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting and the Heideman Award; Girl Is Mine was a nominee for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and a semifinalist for the Austin Film Festival playwriting competition. Her short film Placeholders, which she wrote and co-directed, had its NYC premiere in the 2019 New York Short Film Festival. In 2020 she created #SonnetCoronaProject, a collaborative project in which for 328 days during the pandemic she wrote a sonnet a day for a different actor to perform. BA, English, Duke; MFA, poetry, NYU. Acting training: Michael Howard Studios; Larry Singer Studios; The Barrow Group. jane-elias.com.
BETTINA GOOLSBY (Dorothy, The Lincoln Dress) trained at the William Esper Studio in their 2-year acting conservatory program as well as The People’s Improv Theater (The PIT), and other acting schools in New York City. Originally from Virginia Beach, VA, Bettina graduated with a business degree from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. She lives for travel, long walks, memorable moments spent with friends and family, kettle corn popcorn and adventures of all kinds. She is thankful to be a part of this production, and dedicates her work to her Aunt Jackie (“Auntie”). bettinagoolsby.com
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