Dodgeball Theatre Wraps Up Season

Dodgeball Theatre's Teen Ensemble, now in its fourth year, finished the 2012 performance season this week at  where they performed their original work The Breaking Point for the sixth graders.

This year's ensemble is composed of 13 teens, ages 13-18, from a variety of local middle schools and high schools, and includes several members that were former students at Forest Edge.

The 2012 Teen Ensemble includes Jessica Ashworth, Annie Begley, Hailey Corkery, Kyle DeCamp, Charlotte DeWolfe, Karin Hoelzl, Kaleigh Mullins, Talley Murphy, Kevin Salassi, Savanna Salassi, Abigail Spira, Rachel Thompson, and Alina Zufall.

The Ensemble works together over many months to develop new work that is based on the performers' personal feelings and perceptions of the world around them.  This year's show was about chaos and the beauty that can come from chaos.

The show is made up of monologues, scenes, movement, songs, and visual imagery, and allows the young artists to try to make sense of their world by expressing themselves artistically.

Under the direction of Haley Murphy and Heide Zufall, one of the goals of the company is to provide connections for young people that emphasize the commonality of their feelings and thoughts.

Performing for the sixth graders at Forest Edge allows the pre-teen rising middle schoolers to get a sense that they are not alone in what they are going through while letting the older teens reach back and show that they have been through the same things.

Each performance includes a Question-and-Answer session afterwards as a way to further the connection between the performers and the audience.