Digging Up Dessa
by Laura Schellhardt
directed by Sarah Kearney
Presented through special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Illinois.
PERFORMANCE DATES
April 21 - May 7
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sundays at 2pm
*This is not a young audience focused production, but this show is appropriate for older elementary school grade 3 and up.
SYNOPSIS
Dessa is a 21st-century girl with no shortage of struggles, secrets and mysteries to solve. From dinosaur bones to hidden memories, the world is filled with buried treasures just waiting to be uncovered. Luckily, thanks to the mysterious appearance of a remarkable friend—the pioneering 19th-century English paleontologist Mary Anning—young Dessa knows just how to excavate them! After a field trip to a museum reveals that Mary Anning’s legacy has been buried by history because of her gender and lack of formal education, Dessa decides that she’s going to fight to earn her friend the credit she deserves. With help from her once-rival, Nilo, Dessa sets to work unearthing the secrets hidden beneath the surface of the past and present—for Mary’s history and her own future.
CAST
DESSA: Isabelle Riley
ESTHER: Katie Rodgers
NILO: El Pitts
MARY ANNING: Amanda Clark
Support our incredible understudy cast at the April 28th performance! Learn about the use of understudies and their role as the "bedrock of Broadway" here.
DESSA U/S: Annalise Kidd
ESTHER U/S: Katy Philp
NILO U/S: Rylan Andrews
MARY ANNING U/S: Valarie Brown
Dessa is a 21st-century girl with no shortage of struggles, secrets and mysteries to solve. From dinosaur bones to hidden memories, the world is filled with buried treasures just waiting to be uncovered. Luckily, thanks to the mysterious appearance of a remarkable friend—the pioneering 19th-century English paleontologist Mary Anning—young Dessa knows just how to excavate them! After a field trip to a museum reveals that Mary Anning’s legacy has been buried by history because of her gender and lack of formal education, Dessa decides that she’s going to fight to earn her friend the credit she deserves. With help from her once-rival, Nilo, Dessa sets to work unearthing the secrets hidden beneath the surface of the past and present—for Mary’s history and her own future.
CAST
DESSA: Isabelle Riley
ESTHER: Katie Rodgers
NILO: El Pitts
MARY ANNING: Amanda Clark
Support our incredible understudy cast at the April 28th performance! Learn about the use of understudies and their role as the "bedrock of Broadway" here.
DESSA U/S: Annalise Kidd
ESTHER U/S: Katy Philp
NILO U/S: Rylan Andrews
MARY ANNING U/S: Valarie Brown
