Leading Ladies Leave Their Mark

Leading Ladies Leave Their Mark

SALT LAKE CITY, March 13, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – Allison Dayne is a student at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, pursuing her BFA in Theatre Performance, and she’s out to make an impact on the arts, and the world, with a new experimental theatre experience.  Dayne’s theatre company, “Leading Ladies,” runs under the directive that every play contains at least one prominent role for a woman, and all of the proceeds raised by the production all go to charity. “It’s not art unless it’s a reflection of something. The best art comes from commentary, or a mirror of something,” said Dayne, age 21. “I like to go off of Hamlet’s monologue to the players, which is just ‘the mirror up to nature’ and ‘speak the speech.'”

He latest is an edge original piece called “The Experienced,” which combines dance, slam poetry, monologues and films to tell true stories of domestic violence. “I just kind of said ‘bring me your ideas,'” Dayne said, “and each person brought in something that has touched them, their own personal story – anything – and then I had so much clay to work with.”

Though the show is completely scripted, the entire cast had a hand in how the story was told. “The process was improv,” said Dayne. “People have come in with their stories, and then we brought in tactics and objectives and lights and design and abstract thought to bring them all together.”

One of the most powerful pieces in the show is dance set to the song “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot  Me Down),” the Nancy Sinatra version. The dance features two freshmen, Harrison Catchell and Katelyn Limber, who created it along with choreographer Trayven Call, a junior studying for his BFA in Theatre Performance. The dance is performed immediately after a video clip wherein we see only a closeup of a pair of eyes as a distorted voice tells a story about getting hit by her significant other for the first time, and just going to bed in the same bed with him afterward.

Allison believes that  “Bang Bang” is powerful in its simplicity. “And it’s two freshman doing this piece,” she added with smile. “The Experienced” performs at the Midvale Center For Performing Arts on April 16th and 17th.  All proceeds will go to benefit  the Domestic Violence Coalition in Salt Lake City.