Horizons Theatre: theatre from a woman's perspective

The Body Project examines america's toxic obsession with women's bodies and the quest for perfection.

Washington, DC – A recent poll taken by the Ladies’ Home Journal found that 75% of women are more afraid of spending a day at the beach in a thong than of having a root canal at the dentist.

Why are so many women – especially during this supposed, unprecedented time of equality – dissatisfied with their bodies? This fall, Horizons Theatre will premiere The Body Project, a full-scale production that explores this devastating problem and engages its audience in a provocative and honest story. See the menu to the right for more information on how to see the play.

More about the play:

Inspired in part, by Cornell Women Studies Professor Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s renowned book of the same name, The Body Project captures the way in which women and girls perceive their bodies vis-à-vis America’s toxic obsession with perfection. The play explores the vast disconnect between the myriad of choices and opportunities modern women have gained, and the ever-growing dissatisfaction they feel with their bodies.

The Body Project explores the excruciating phenomenon of women’s desire to hide and/or minimize themselves through bingeing and purging, elective surgical procedures, layers of clothing and regimented dieting; and the devastating effect that this phenomenon has on relationships.

The play was created by a team of award-winning writers and text and music were crafted through intensive workshops involving improvisation, writing exercises, and interviews with women of all ages from the metropolitan Washington D.C. area.

“Americans live in a destructive society that requires girls, adult women and older women to adhere to and constantly work towards the media’s concept of womanly perfection,” said Leslie Jacobson, founder and artistic director of Horizons Theatre. “The idea of women beautifying themselves is, of course, not new. But today, technology makes so many changes possible. Girls and women are expected to strive for ‘perfection’ as dictated by fashion magazines and extreme makeover television shows.”

Research, both quantifiable and anecdotal, shows disturbing trends in the way American girls and women view their bodies. According to Joan Jacobs Brumberg, 53 percent of thirteen-year-old American girls are unhappy with their bodies; by age seventeen, fully 78 percent are dissatisfied. Why are American girls increasingly unhappy with themselves?

“As we continue to achieve greater economic and political equality,” Jacobson continues, “we are trapping ourselves in lives that seem to be fed by the unhealthy projections of beauty endorsed by our society. Our goal for this play is not only to engage our audience with these stories, but also to inspire greater dialogue about these issues and what they mean for current and future generations of women.”

Terri Allen(Lyricist) is a singer, actress, and songwriter. Terri recently premiered her caberet show, I Choose Love at the Atlas theatre, and performed her caberet show, Portraits in Time for the Horizons series, Going Solo: A Showcase of Fabulous Females. She appeared as Malla in the Kennedy Center's Sondheim Festival production of A Little Night Music and portrayed the glamorous Mae West in Horizons' production of In Good Company: Sexual Icons. Terri has collaborated with composer Todd Hahn previously- including songs for their new musical revue, Suburban Tales, and for That Takes Ovaries!, a Horizons production. In addition, they have written several commercial songs including "A Family of Friends" for the American Red Cross and "A Portrait of America" for the US Cencus Bureau.

Caren Anton (Roberta) Horizons audiences last saw Ms. Anton in the 2003-'04 season as Billie in Unspoken Prayers. Other Horizons appearances include Count Basil, Peace and Quiet, Kindertransport, Acts of Devotion (Sisters), Emma's Child, In Good Company: Arts and Letters (Louisa May Alcott), In Good Company: Power Edition (Victoria Woodhull), and In Good Company: Kosher Edition (Dorothy Parker). In addition she has performed locally with Woolly Mammoth/UMD, Theatre J, The Kennedy Center, The Center Company, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop/Theatre Alliance, Source Theatre, Rep Stage and Washington Shakespeare Company. Caren is currently Horizons' business manager and artistic associate.

Roy Barber (Composer) has been composing and music directing for Horizons for the past 20 years, for Talking With, Eleeomosinary, Strangers in Their Own Land, Unspoken Prayers, Absent Minded Sweethearts, as well as the Outreach Community Project for Safer Schools, I WANT TO TELL YOU, and his collaboration with Leslie Jacobson on two musical plays with the Bokamoso Youth in Winterveldt, South Africa, Family Portraits and A Tree Must Learn to Bend as well as his own play on the AIDS crisis, Won't Happen to Me. He was nominated as a playwright for outstanding new play by the Helen Hayes Awards for Children With Stones, and (with Bari Biern) Dance Against Darkness: Living with AIDS. He has composed music for Studio, Round House and Kennedy Center's Programs for Children and Youth. He has taught performing arts at St. Andrews Episcopal School for 19 years where he also directs the school's South African Exchange Program.

Barbara Brennan (Set Designer) has been an exhibition designer at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum since 1980. Her work there included Star Trek and the Sixties; How Things Fly; and The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age. She produced a short play, Twelve Seconds That Changed the World, that was performed two days per week for 18 months at the Wright Brothers exhibition. For the past 10 years, she has designed sets in the Washington, DC area for Horizons Theatre, Deaf Access Theatre Group, and Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts.

Teresa Castracane (Photography Exhibit) is a photographer and classically trained actor. She holds and MFA from the Academy for Classical Acting, but she has also been taking photographs since she recieved her first Nikon for Christmas at age twelve. Raised near Philidelphia, she now resides in Washington, DC, where she provides headshot photography to local actors. Examples of her work can be seen at www.TeresaCastracane.com.

Ellen Cornett (Cover Art, Graphics and Program Design) is a painter, graphic designer and teacher of visual arts. A member of the Capitol Hill Art League and the Alexandria Art League, she is a frequent exhibitor in juried shows. She taeches drawing and painting at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. Her firm, Graphic Design & Production, has been serving clients since 1990.

Andrea Cottin (Assistant Stage Manger) is pleased to be working with Horizons for the first time as an assistant stage manager. She is a graduate of Bennington College, where she focused on visual art and literature. She has previously worked as a lighting technician for Renegade Theatre. Andrea also writes and illustrates her own comics.

Kathleen Gonzales (Serena) is an actor, voice-over artist, and theatre educator. She was last seen in James and the Giant Peach at Imagination Stage in Bethesda where she played Ladybird and Aunt Sponge. Other theatre experience includes GALA Hispanic Theatre's Real Women Have Curves (Anna), Landless Theatre's Nine (Lina Darling) and Diamond Dead (Movement Coach/P.A. Dangle), and Round House Theatre, Bethesda's Living Out (Sandra Zavala, understudy). Kathleen teaches for Montgomery College in Rockville and Imagination Stage's Satellite Program and holds and MFA in Acting from Ohio State University. She is thrilled to be working with Horizons Theatre and her fellow cast members on The Body Project and would like to thank her friends and family for their constant support!

Cristin Guinan-Wiley (Dramaturg) is a recent graduate of The George Washington University with degrees in both Theatre and Dramatic Literature. While a student at GW she was the dramaturg for the Department of Theatre and Dance's productions of Ruddigore and City of Angels. Right now she is also performing the role of Crystal Allen in The Provident Players' production of The Women. She would like to thank Leslie Jacobson for the opportunity to be a part of The Body Project, and the rest of the cast and crew for their hard work.

Todd Hahn (Composer) composes music for film and television. His many clients in Washington, DC range from the National Geographic to the Discovery Channel, to PBS, HBO and the History Channel. In addition, Todd regularly composes music for political campaigns. He has collaborated with Terri Allen (lyricist) on several other songs, including a song for the Horizons show That Takes Ovaries!, songs for the musical revue, Suburban Tales, and several commercial songs.

Rosemary Hartman (Evelyn) This will be Rosemary's first appearance with Horizons and she is delighted to be in the company of such a talented cast. Most recently she played Yente the Matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof at the Wohlfahrt Haus Theatre in Southern Virginia. Some other favorite roles include Fansia in The Gin Game, Aunt Eller in Oklahoma!, and Mrs. Gibbs in Our Town. Rosemary is also an award winning director, having directed more than 30 productions in New Hampshire and the Northern Virginia/Washington, DC area. She studied theatre at the Universities of New Hampshire and Maryland, and spent a year as an intern at the old Folger Theatre in Washington, DC. As always, she is grateful to her family and friends for their unwavering support.

Andrea Hatfield (Alex) is happy to be involved in her 3rd production at Horizons- previously having been seen as Dinah Shore in In Good Company: Kosher Edition and as Mrs. San Fransisco in Mrs. California. At Signature Theatre, she played Emma in Melville Slept Here and Vera in Vera. She was the Mother in Nocturne and Andre's Mother in Andre's Mother, both at Studio Theatre Seconstage, and, in real life, is the mother of two teenaged boys. She has performed at numerous other local theatres including Source, Consenting Adults, and the Kennedy Center Theatre Lab, and recently completed work on the independant film Death Without Consent.

Aiko Ichimura (Producer) began working with Horizons Theatre in 1993 as a production advisor for Tea, by Velina Hasu Houston. She has been a theatre consultant to many Japanese-American plays at various Washington-area theatres. She has produced several plays for Horizons including Rhythms, by Chris White, which won the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play. In 2004 she produced Unspoken Prayers to her great pride and joy. She is very excited to be involved again with Horizon Theatre's production of The Body Project.

Leslie Jacobson (Writer/Director) is the founding Artistic Director of Horizons Theatre. As a playwright, director, and teacher, Jacobson has committed her 30-plus years in the professional theatre to creating and producing work that addresses many of the issues which plague our contemporary society- issues of sexism, racism, homophobia, and other dehumanizing methods of categorizing the individual. In the past four years, she has been working with a community in Winterveldt, South Africa, creating theatre with at-risk youth in collaboration with composer/playwright Roy Barber. She has been nominated three times for Helen Hayes Awards in the category of Outstanding Direction. Jacobson enjoys creating theatre in non-traditional spaces, and has done so at the Smithsonian, the US Memorial Holocaust Museum, and the United States Senate. She is the Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at The George Washington University. It has been a great joy for her to be working with such remarkable collaborators on this project; and she is deeply grateful to her family for their continuing support.

Hope Lambert (Photography Exhibit) is honored to have the experience of co-creating The Beauty Project, a photographic exploration of female beauty. This is her first time working with a photographer in developing an exhibit and she is grateful to Leslie Jacobson and Caren Anton for providing the opportunity. As a DC actress, Ms. Lambert is performing with Charter Theatre in their upcoming production, Building a Boat by Peter Coy. She was most recently seen as Michelle in Fallen from Proust at Signature Theatre. Additional credits include: Lady MacBeth at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre; Elsa in The Road to Mecca at Olney Theatre; Beth in Little Women at the Kennedy Center; and Olivia in Twelfth Night at Washington Shakespeare Company, where she is a former company member.

Joyce F. Liu (Angela) is a newcomer to the Washington stage, having recently completed a run as the Jenny Chow understudy for The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow at Studio Theatre Secondstage, and as Megumi Iishi in Tsunami Theatre's staged reading of Fireflies at the Kennedy Center's Page-to-Stage Festival. Her prior stage credits include roles in 12-1-A at East West Players and Soup or Salad at the University of Wisconsin, and directing credits for A Language of Their Own, also at the University of Wisconsin. She can be seen in upcoming film and television projects. Joyce has studied at the Studio Theatre Conservatory and at the University of California, Los Angeles, and credits her husband as her greatest source of strength and support for daring to just try.

Ola Odeniran (Nia) is excited to be working with Horizons Theatre for the first time. A proud member of Actors Equity, she was recently seen in The Art of Play Making at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre and the Kennedy Center's National Tour of Alexander, Who's Not Not Not Going to Move! Off stage she is an instructor of dane gymnastics, and choreographs at Imagination Stage in Bethesda and TLG of Potomac, MD. As Always Big Thanx to God, family and friends.

Nadia S. Pillay (Tara) is pleased to make her Washington DC debut with Horizons Theatre. A graduate of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Nadia has acquired her professional credits in "the city of brotherly love" in roles such as A Midsummer Night's Dream's Titania, The Crucible's Mary Warren, The Misunderstanding's Maria, to name a few. Nadia wishes to thank her mother Soraya, her father Nat, and her siblings for their unconditional love and support. A special offering of gratitude to Judigh Cohall and Khalil Gill for opening their hearts and home as she journeys to fulfil her dream and for being in the audience at every production she's been in.

Melissa K Richardson (Stage Manager) is a director, stage manager, and theatre educator. She holds a BFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University. Upcoming projects include directing The Golden Goose at Alden Theatre this spring. The Body Project is her first production with Horizons Theatre.

Meghan Shea (Assistant Set Designer/Properties/Photography Exhibit) would like to thank her family and the Women's Leadership Program community at The George Washington University. Meghan graduated with a BA in Fine Art and Art History from The George Washington University and is currently getting her Master's of Fine Art in Interior Design at GW while working as a teaching assistant for the International Art and Culture Women's Leadership Program. She has worked on documentary films such as Peter Jenning's Reporting Guantanamo and as art director and script writer for the short film No. 2.

Valerie St. Pierre Smith (Costume Designer) After recieving her FMA in Costume Design and Technology from San Diego State University, Valerie has worked as a designer and artisan for clients that include Warner Brothers Studios, Hollywood; The Old Globe Theatre; La Jolla Playhouse and Sea World, San Diego, plus many others. Some of her favorite show credits include She Loves Me, The Skriker, The Tempest, A Doll House, and Tartuffe. Having recently relocated to the DC area after running the costume design program at the State University of New York at New Paltz, she continues to freelance as well as serving as an adjunct faculty member at Marymount University. Valerie is very excited to be working with Horizons Theatre on The Body Project.

Vanessa Thomas (Writer/Director) is an artistic associate of Horizons and a founding member of the Medusa Speaks Artists' Collective, is honored to be a part of this project. As an interdisciplinary artist who is constantly exploring the intersection of different forms of expression, her work with Horizons includes In Good Company: Sexual Icons, That Takes Ovaries!, Unspoken Prayers, and her solo performance piece, Communion. Vanessa dedicates all of her work to healing the human spirit. Thank you to all the women who created this story.

Maja E. White (Lighting Designer) has worked professionally in the entertainment industry since 1990, both nationally and internationally, as a freelance lighting designer for opera, theatre, dance, concerts and events. She is pleased to be returning to work with Horizons Theatre in DC. Most recently, she has been the lighting director/designer for the international dance tour of Tracings with Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company. Maja is a member of IATSE/United Scenic Artists Local 829. She holds an MFA in lighting and sound design from Wayne State University.

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David Lamont Wilson (Sound Designer) is pleased to finally be sound designing at Horizons Theatre and working with the talented cast and design team. Recently, Mr. Wilson designed sound for the african Continuum Theatre Company's productions of I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda and Pretty Fire. Earlier in the year, his sound design was heard in the productions of Titus Andronicus and The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore for the Washington Shakespeare Company. Later this year, he will start work on the inaugural production of A Raisin in the Sun at the newly renovated Atlas Theatre. David has designed sound for the Kennedy Center, Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Imagination Stage, The Actor's Repertory, Georgetown University, The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, and Duke Ellington School of Performing Arts. Thank you "SWEO" for your love and support!

Horizon gives special thanks to Jamie Bromely at The George Washington University, the Department of Theatre and Dance at The George Washington University, and Takako Nagai