Orange Girls squeeze out competition for Kevin Kline nomination
by Corey Stulce
01-26-2006

The farm report may be unbelievable, but it's true. The unseasonable weather in the St. Louis area has actually helped oranges to bloom early in 2006.

Well, Orange Girls, actually.

The newest theatre troupe in the St. Louis area was shocked -- and thrilled -- to discover they nabbed seven nominations for the first Kevin Kline Awards earlier this month, for their one and only production, "Going to See the Elephant."

With long-standing theatre companies like the Rep, Stages, the Muny and New Line filling up most of the other noms, it seems a trio of women are ready to juice their competition -- no pulp, please.

Once upon a time, when women were not allowed near the theatre stage, they sold fruit outside the venues, until one orange seller, Nell Gwynn, was able to finagle her way onto the stage. The name Orange Girls is a testament to the troupe's mission to produce good theatre, with strong roles for women, even if they have to turn former male characters female.

Orange Girls was created out of necessity by three pals, co-founder and co-artistic director Brooke Edwards said.

"Even with the Rep adding a third season, there were only roles for three women," she said. "There's definitely a need for this."

Their first production, "Elephant," staged in October, which gave a voice to four pioneer women, garnered outstanding reviews from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Riverfront Times.

"We weren't shocked. We knew we had a pretty good show," Edwards said. "We were surprised that across the board people liked it."

Michelle Hand and Meghan Maguire are the other two co-founders, and the trio was brought together through a mutual friend, Brian Baraca, and soon discovered they all had projects they wanted help with -- so why not team up?

All three have strong, impressive backgrounds in performance. Edwards recently moved to the St. Louis area from Los Angeles to raise her young son in a "quieter" area, and has appeared in theatrical productions in Washington, D.C. and TV and film in Los Angeles.

St. Louisan Hand has performed with many local theatre groups and teaches performance at Fontbonne University. Maguire, also from St. Louis and acting since she was very young, co-founded a New York company and worked with various Off-Off-Broadway projects, in addition to TV work.

Their goal, collectively, was to continue working in theatre in St. Louis, but since the roles were scarce, Orange was the answer.

"A lot of theatre companies do blind casting, as far as race, not as far as sex," Edwards said. "One of my dreams is to play Judas in 'Jesus Christ Superstar.' A lot of people are not open to that."

They have two more shows planned for their debut season: Greek tragedy "Medea" by Euripides, about a woman betrayed; and an all-female production of Christopher Marlowe's soul-selling "Dr. Faustus." Roles for "Medea," like the kings Creon and Aegeus, have been changed to women.

"I've always wanted to do a Greek tragedy and bring a modern voice to it," Edwards said of "Medea." "We're trying to take a modern issue like postpartum depression and bring it to the forefront."

They recently held auditions for "Medea," and Edwards said a lot of people are interested in working with Orange Girls -- and the announcement of the Kline noms certainly will help bring the troupe more attention.

For "Elephant," Orange Girls was nominated for Outstanding Production of a Play; Deanna Jent for Outstanding Director of a Play; Outstanding Ensemble in a Play; Nancy Lewis and Meghan Maguire for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play and Brooke Edwards and Michelle Hand for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play. The Kevin Kline Awards will be presented at 7 p.m. March 20 at the Roberts Orpheum Theatre in Downtown St. Louis.

Originally, Orange Girls had planned on presenting a staged reading of Eve Ensler's "The Good Body" for a February fund-raiser, but Ensler surprised the group by coming to town and performing the piece at the beginning of January at Washington University.

"Now it's going to be a staged reading of 'The Fattest Person Wins,' about four women waiting in a liposuction clinic," Edwards said. The Love Your Body fund-rasier will also be an evening of chocolate and champagne on Feb. 25 at Marbles Yoga Studio, 1905 Park Ave. in Lafayette Square.

Edwards said Orange Girls is wisely taking baby steps in the St. Louis theatre community, and all three co-founders are still working "day jobs," as they look toward their next season, as well as obtaining non-profit status and an outreach program -- possibly to aid a woman's shelter or teen program in the area.

"We also would like to develop new works," Edwards said. "We're very interested in writing and producing original works -- especially Meghan, she's the writer."

For more information about Orange Girls, visit www.orangegirls.org.

You can e-mail Corey Stulce at frozo85@hotmail.com.

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