Framroze Virjee, President, California State University, Fullerton
Amir H. Dabirian, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs (Interim)
Alexander Porter, Vice President, Administration and Finance/CFO
David Forgues, Vice President, Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion
Rommel Hidalgo, Vice President, Information Technology
Tonantzin Oseguera, Vice President, Student Affairs
Gregory J. Saks, Vice President, University Advancement
Arnold Holland, EdD, Dean
Dave Mickey, Associate Dean
Bonnie Li Victorino, Academic Resource Manager
Christopher Johnson, Budget Coordinator
Heather Guzman, Assistant to the Deans
Visual Arts Special Projects, Jade Jewett
Dr. Randall Goldberg, Director, School of Music
Dr. James Hussar, Chair, Department of Visual Arts
Jamie Tucker, Chair, Department of Theatre & Dance
Jennifer Frias, Director, Nicholas & Lee Begovich Gallery
John Spiak, Director, Grand Central Art Center - Santa Ana
Ann Steichen, Director of Development
Erika Ochoa, Support Group Coordinator
Julie Bussell, Director, Marketing & Patron Services
Stephanie Tancredi, Box Office Manager
Heather Richards-Siddons
Marketing & Communications Specialist
Alvin Chiu, Graphic Designer
Jason Pano, Social Media Strategist
Greetings from the College of the Arts! It’s so good to have you back, and we have an exceptional spring season planned for you. With programming ranging from groundbreaking theatre productions to World-Premiere concerts, our spring offerings seem to shine a bit brighter this semester. On January 28, we kicked things off with the Visual Arts Modernization Project Preview Event and groundbreaking ceremony. More than 100 invited guests joined us for a sneak peek of the project as they engaged with some of the latest technology-driven art tools, experienced AR/VR project demonstrations by visual arts students, and viewed scale models of the complex. When completed, this renovation will transform our campus and community, positioning CSUF’s visual arts program – the largest in the Cal State system – as a leader in cutting-edge art education and practice within the CSUs. Follow our progress and join us on this extraordinary journey at art.fullerton.edu/vamod
This season’s fresh slate of visual arts exhibitions and performing arts concerts and productions are sure to keep you coming back to campus! Beginning February 18, Begovich Gallery presents the exhibition “Figures, Poses, and Glances: The Coded Illustrations of J.C Leyendecker,” at MUZEO Museum & Cultural Center, exploring the coded depictions of queer culture in the eradefining images of this early twentieth-century American illustrator. The School of Music honors Black History Month with a performance of “Symphony No. 1 in E minor” by composer Florence Price – the first Black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra. In Theatre, Maria Cominis’ “Women of Zalongo” weaves together the experiences of four generations of Greek women into a story of resilience, struggle, and survival. And in May, our student dancers and choreographers collaborate in rhythmic, expressive movement as “Spring Dance Theatre” returns to the Little Theatre.
Our diverse programming mirrors the diversity of the College of the Arts and is a testament to the values we hold. We embrace the possibility inherent in each of our students and celebrate their successes alongside them on their path to becoming future artists, educators, performers, and arts professionals. As patrons, donors, friends, and family, I know you also champion their success. Demonstrate your commitment to the future of the arts by supporting the Dean’s Fund for Excellence at any level. Donate today at arts.fullerton.edu/giving.
I invite you to visit to campus our again for another performance, or to check out our progress as the Visual Arts Modernization Project moves into the next phase of construction. You may have even seen the walls of one of our new buildings going up along State College Blvd! Whatever brings you here, welcome. We are so proud to show you all that the College of the Arts at Cal State Fullerton has to offer.
Arnold Holland, Ed.D. Dean, College of the Arts
Jamie Tucker Chair, Department of Theatre & Dance
Alvin Rangel-Alvarado,* Vice Chair, Department of Theatre & Dance
FULL-TIME FACULTY | Theatre
Acting
Maria Cominis
Svetlana Efremova•
Eve Himmelheber
John Short
Jim Taulli
Design and Technical Production
Scott Bolman
Hyun Sook Kim*^
Fred Kinney*
JR Luker
Bill Meyer
Carolyn Mraz
Kathryn Wilson
Directing
Mark Ramont•*
Musical Theatre
Josh Grisetti•*
Marty Austin Lamar
Theatre Studies
Dr. Heather Denyer•
Amanda Rose Villarreal, PhD
Voice and Movement
Anne James
David Nevell•
FULL-TIME FACULTY | Dance
Muriel Joyce
Lisa D. Long
Debra Noble
Alvin Rangel-Alvarado*
*denotes program coordinator
•denotes area head
^denotes graduate coordinator
FULL-TIME STAFF
Department of Theatre & Dance
Administration
Denean Dyson
Technical and Production Staff
Michael August, Production Manager
Lois Bryan, Master Electrician
Matt Connelly, Amanda Horak Staff Scenic Lab Forepersons
Heidi Enzlin Cole, Charge Scenic Artist
Jen Frauenzimmer
Business/ Production Coordinator
Terri Nista, Costume Lab Manager
Lori Koontz, Costume Lab Techncian
Megan Gonzalez, TV Studio Technician
Jeff Lewis, Production Sound Engineer
William Lemley, Audio Technician
Bob West, Properties Master
Brigitte Bellavoine, Jennifer Schniepp & Ben Rempel, Accompanists
Stephanie Tancredi Box Office Manager & Safety Coordinator
Cathi Craig, Lead House Manager
www.facebook.com/CSUFTheatre
Instagram | @csuftheatre
Twitter | @csuftheatre
The Department of Theatre & Dance at California State University, Fullerton is fully and continuously accredited by the National Association of Schools of Theatre (1974) and the National Association of Schools of Dance (1982)
Production Stage Manager
Emily Mattson
Scenic Designer/ Prop Master
Nicole Bernardini
Technical Director Oscar Garcia
Costume Designer Greer Gardner
Lighting Designer Noemi Barrera
Dramaturg Richard Garcia
Makeup/Hair Designer Kieran Tierney
Sound Designer Lia Weed**
Scenic Charge Artist Heidi Enzlin Cole*
Intimacy Choreographer Amanda Rose Villarreal, PhD*
ASL interpreters provided by Sign Up Interpreting Services
*Faculty/Staff ^Guest Artist **Alum
alumni.fullerton.edu
“Fefu and Her Friends” was produced by the Cal State Fullerton Department of Theatre and Dance in partnership with the Alumni House. Special thanks to Bill Cole, Jessica Rowland and the Alumni House staff.
Setting and Characters
It is the intent of the Playwright that this play takes place in 1935 in New England, however, the issues and injustices presented in this material are still relevant today. It is the vision of the Director that this production shall feel timeless and present in multiple eras to bring awareness and consciousness to the subject matter in this material.
Fefu, our host, is an educated woman who presents at local educational and arts non-profits, often speaking on issues related to women and gender studies, as well as politics. She has invited you all into her home to watch the dress rehearsal of a performance protest seeking to fundraise for arts education in public schools.
Cindy is one of Fefu’s close friends. She is amused by Fefu’s quirkiness, and shares many of Fefu’s opinions, but also loves egging people on and inciting both conflict and laughter. Cindy sees the best in everyone around her, and is the connective tissue among the group.
Christina has not met Fefu before today; she was invited by Cindy to participate in the performance protest and fundraiser, perhaps due to her personality’s contrast with Fefu’s.
Julia was very close to Fefu, Cindy, and the others until about a year ago, at which point Julia was shot in a hunting accident and paralyzed. Since then, her recovery process— and her friends’ discomfort and inability to understand her struggle—have distanced them.
Emma is among the most close-knit in the group, along with Fefu, Cindy, and Julia. She is well-educated, well-traveled, and well-resourced. Her flair for the dramatic and her extraversioncan sometimes overwhelm the group, but her enthusiasm also ties the group together.
Paula is well-educated, having attended graduate school with Fefu, Emma, Cindy, Julia, and Sue. However, Paula comes from a more financially meager background; she has a chip on her shoulder that has led her to remain somewhat closed off from her friends.
Sue is the most organized of the women; she is the friend that keeps the group functional and focused when needed. A caretaker and empath, Sue often makes decisions that center the emotional support of those around her. She might be the group’s mom friend.
Cecilia joins the group today seeking to reconnect with a lost lover. She is keenly intelligent, analytical, and insightful, seeing through the veneer of others’ facades and refusing to accept pretense from those around her.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Amanda Rose Villarreal, PhD is an intimacy choreographer and immersive artist. They earned their MA with an emphasis in Directing from Central Washington University and their PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Amanda Rose is co-founder of the Journal of Consent-Based Performance; associate faculty with Theatrical Intimacy Education; and assistant faculty at California State University Fullerton. They have recently choreographed intimacy for Pasadena Playhouse and Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, as well as creating consent mechanics for playable performances at Sinking Ship Creations in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia and for Moonrise Larp and Otherworld Theatre in Chicago.
They have recently performed in the pervasive game Project Ascension and in the immersive performance Strange Bird at the Weird Plays Festival at The Tank in NYC; their recent publications are featured in Experiential Theatres: Praxis-Based Approaches to Training 21st Century Theatre Artists (Routledge, 2022), the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism (36.1, 2021), Global Performance Studies (4.2, 2021), and Theatre and Performance Notes and Counternotes (forthcoming: 2023).
Director’s Note
The deliberate effort of your life, unbeknownst to you, has been to crush freedoms. Train any animal—or any plant—as you train your girls, and it will no longer be able to survive in the wild.
The remedy—the only word that ever brought equity anywhere—is LIBERTY. For effeminate boys. For strong girls. For all lives and loves.
-Voltairine De Cleyre, 1890
Hélène Cixous wrote in the “Father’s daughter” (1984) that women are stuck upon a prescribed path. The trailhead is repression; the path meanders cyclically through oppression, the asylum, and silent self-subjugation until finally arriving at death. In Fefu and Her Friends, we meet a variety of femme characters struggling to see this path, recognize the forces that keep them upon it, and to choose whether or not they dare stray towards a path of their own.
Fefu and Her Friends was written by a queer woman in a time that predated legal equity both for women and for those in the queer community. In our current moment, with state and national
political movements rolling back the legal rights achieved in recent U.S. history, the fears Fornes wove into the tapestry of this script are leaping off of the page and into our reality.
Therefore, we are situating this play within our own world. The audience has been invited—by Fefu or by one of her Friends—to observe a dress rehearsal of their performance protest, which will be presented later to the local school board in an endeavor to fight for arts education and to access to literature and history curriculum that informs students about the inequities that exist in our world.
The friends are still in the midst of organizing for their protest. In this planning, they are simultaneously considering our cultural history and the current moment, bringing an entire timeline of human rights into conversation with the present.
This timeline informs the friends in crafting their presentation for the school board:
In 1923–one hundred years ago exactly—the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced. It read: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.” In the following fifty years, twenty states refused to ratify this legislation, killing the bill.
In 1963, only one state—Illinois—had decriminalized homosexuality.
In 1973–fifty years ago— the Supreme Court both registered the Roe v. Wade decision and banned sex-segregated job postings. This is also the year that Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs, went into effect after its passing in 1972. Also in 1973, the board of the American Psychiatric Association finally voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.
In 1983, only one state—Wisconsin—had outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 1993, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy allowed homosexual men to participate in the military while legally requiring them to remain closeted.
In 2013—a mere decade ago—the ban against women in military combat positions was removed. Under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the government legally mandated closeted lifestyles for sapphic women. This same year, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have legally ended gender-based wage discrimination, was filibustered by the Republican Party twice, dying in congress.
In this same year, the Supreme Court declared Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, requiring the government to recognize same-sex marriages conducted by the states. Two years later, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal.
Now, in 2023, Title IX rights are being challenged as sex-based discrimination is rewritten into law and educational policy, mandating genital exams for K-12 sports. Literature and history curriculums that identify inequities in our culture are being banned from schools. 29 states currently have laws in place banning same-sex marriage if Obergefell v Hodges is overturned, which Supreme Court Justices have actively called for in the past two years.
Dramaturgical information: Frida Kahlo, “The Wounded Deer”
“The Wounded Deer” is an oil painting by celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Through “The Wounded Deer,” Kahlo shares her enduring physical and emotional suffering with her audience, as she did throughout her creative oeuvre.
This painting in particular was created towards the end of Kahlo’s life, when her health was in decline. Kahlo combines pre-Columbian, Buddhist, and Christian symbols to express her wide spectrum of influences and beliefs.
Student Production Staff
Assistant Stage Managers
Ky Gaskill, Mads Padilla
Assistant Hair/Makeup Designer
Grace Miguel
Assistant Props Phoebe Constantino
Assistant Costume Designers Michelle Dalirifar, Reset DeAngelo
Scenic/Prop Crew
Sophia Beeles, Charlie Duval, Christopher Lara, Nicole Maldonado
Lighting Board Operator
George Diaz Mejia
Sound Crew Phoebe Constantino
Costume Crew
Annamarie Davis, Kara Dietz, Chloe Schweikert
Sewing Crew
Nicole Bernardini, Miranda Vasquez, Carolyn Mraz*
Lighting Crew Arlo Gersten
Lead Scenic Artists
Nicole Bernardini, Diego Banda, Zoe Agpaoa, Cecilia Esquivel
Scenic Artists
Abby Rariden, Zoe Ng, Thomas Keenan, Evelyn Flynn, Elin Ruden, Mickey Narez
Additional Props Assistance
Jordan Curiel, Alecia Bennett
Additional Electricians
Alecia Bennet, Jordan Curiel
Costume Lab Student Assistants
Makayla Finn, Greer Gardner, Ryn Heier, Cati Holper, Lindsey Kirkwood, Hayden Lalicker, Caroline Lovett, Tori Martinez, Gwen Sloan
Scenic Lab Carpenters
Cody Baker, Katherine Brauer, George Diaz Mejia, Liz Doubrovsky, Oscar Enrique Garcia, Thomas Keenan, Heather McLane, Blythe Ryther, Bri Thurber, and students from TH 276
Production Office Assistants
Collette Rutherford, Madeleine Lindbeck, Anthony Osborn
Box Office Staff
Madison Dabalos, Jailene Diaz, Oscar Garcia, Sarabeth Johnson, Josiah Sanchez
House Manager Heather McLane
*Faculty/Staff ^Guest Artist **Alum
Faculty Mentors
Costumes; Makeup/Hair Mentor Hyun Sook Kim
Dramaturgy Mentor Dr. Heather Denyer
Lighting Design Mentor Scott Bolman
Props; Scenic Mentor Carolyn Mraz
Stage Management Mentor Shay Garber
Technical Direction Mentor JR Luker
Paper Dolls ARMS ARMS
NOTE If you are attending a performance of “Fefu,” please refer to the map and corresponding doll parts on the printout you were given upon entry. The below images are shown for information purposes only. Thank you!
