Bridgette Dunlap

Director

Adapted and directed by Bridgette Dunlap
Based on the short story by Kelly Link
from the book Stranger Things Happen

The Ateh Theater Group
Connelly Theater, New York
February 23-March 17, 2007

Starring Kathryn Ekblad, Tim Eliot, Alexis Grausz, Chris Hale, Charley Layton, John Long, Madeleine Maby, Sara Montgomery, Elizabeth Neptune, Danielle Thorpe, Marie Weller and Ben Wood

Choreography by Whitney Stock, set and costume design by Emily French, lighting design by Michael Salvas, sound design by Chris Rummel

The Crown Point Festival
Abrons Art Center, Harry Du Jur Playhouse
November 2007

Starring Stephen Agosto, Kathryn Ekblad, Glory Gallo, Alexis Grausz, Charley Layton, Madeleine Maby, Sara Montgomery, Javier Muños, Elizabeth Neptune, Anthony Palenscar, Hugh Scully, Danielle Thorpe, Marie Weller and Ben Wood

Original choreography by Whitney Stock, additional choreography by Alexis Grausz and Anthony Palenscar, set design by Emily French, costume design by Emily French and Amy VanMullekom, lighting design by James Bedell, sound design by Chris Rummel

Above photgraphy by Anthony Collins, below photography by Christopher Montgomery

"The girl detective doesn't care for fiction."

"You remember. That bank downtown. Maybe you saw them come in"

"Only heroes and girl detectives go to the underworld on purpose."

"People dream about lost or stolen things, and this woman, her mother, is always in these dreams. "

 

The Village Voice
Clue Love
A fairy-tale sleuth seeks out missing memories
by Katie Baker
March 6th, 2007

At the beginning of The Girl Detective, an adaptation of Kelly Link's postmodern fairy tale, our titular sleuth (captivatingly played by Kathryn Ekblad) is presented with her latest case: a bank robbery committed by 12 beauties in boas and black masks who tap-dance their way into tellers' hearts and vaults. In their wake, the underworld spills out into safes and missing things begin to reappear— retainers, mismatched socks, even Amelia Earhart.

Turns out, the Girl Detective knows all about the underworld—she goes there every night in other people's dreams to search for her missing mother. And as this mesmerizing play progresses, it comes to resemble a dream. Odd characters waltz through—Chinese waiters, 12 dancing sisters. In the under world, words and images are slippery, memory is unstable, and things that mean the most to us (like the color of our lover's eyes) threaten to disappear faster than the Girl Detective can change disguises. Beneath its fizzy fun, the play asks a question that haunts our nightmares: What if life is a series of increasingly serious losses—first, a cat runs away, then our husband vamooses with the secretary, then we forget our mother's face—until the underworld claims all and we are left with nothing?

 

girl detective | long distance | flammable skirt | johnny panic | odyssey
alice | grimms | little prince | frog prince | bobby gould | bash