American Girl(s)
By Abby Uphoff
MU Theatre, Fall 2024
American Girl(s) is a one-act play that zooms in on a moment in time at Camp Rainbow Bridge, a grief camp. The story follows MJ, a jaded young woman with existential tendencies who grapples with the loss of her beloved Aunt Kay. MJ is tasked with writing a letter to the object she brought to camp connected to her loss, a Molly American Girl Doll. With disdain for Camp Rainbow Bridge and its festive 4th of July celebration that reminds MJ of the deceptions of the “American Dream,” MJ writes and then throws her letter in the fire. In a seemingly magical turn of events, MJ is subsequently greeted by a real live version of Molly. While deeply skeptical of this “camp exercise” at first, together Molly and MJ grieve, heal, scream, sing, and question what it means to grow up as an American Girl.
During rehearsals for American Girl(s), we experimented with body mapping exercises to explore our personal relationship, and our character's relationship, to the concept of the "American Dream."
Another unique aspect of this process was our partnership with non-partisan MU student orgs. Students from the political science and social work departments volunteered their time at our voter registration booth in the lobby since it was an election year and we opened the weekend before the voter registration deadline in MO.
Director's Note
I first read American Girl(s) in December of 2023 in preparation to direct a staged reading at the Region 5 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, where Abby’s script won the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play. After the festival ended and we returned to our regularly scheduled lives, I still could not stop thinking about this play. I thought about my own American Girl Doll gifted to me by my grandmother. The doll was probably thrown in my childhood closet haphazardly one day and has been collecting dust ever since. When was the last time I played with that doll? And why did I stop dreaming of possible futures with her? And how could I be so careless with a doll that EXPENSIVE?! The Fourth of July rolled around and I thought about MJ’s hatred of the holiday, interrogating why exactly I wasn’t feeling so patriotic this year either. Now here we are in this theater together, a month away from an important election in this country, exploring concepts like grief, healthcare, capitalism, girlhood, and the American Dream. Sometimes while rehearsing the show we felt overwhelmed by it all, but more often we laughed together. Sometimes we went on existential tangents (mostly me), other times we reminisced about the things that brought us joy growing up ( #TeamJacob). Some rehearsals we engaged in rigorous script analysis, some nights we tapped into our inner-child and did arts and crafts projects. But the entire time I have worked on this show with this team of people, I’ve felt profoundly reconnected to the sense of wonder, the sincere generosity, the unwavering bravery, and the staunch hopefulness of a forgotten younger self. For all you “adults” sitting in the audience, I hope you get to remember what that feels like alongside us. Hold on to that feeling when the weight of the world feels a little too heavy and the future seems uncertain. And consider what it could mean if as Molly suggests, American Girls really do just grow up to be American Girls.