(Photo by Joy Reneke Photography)
The Wolves
by Sarah Delappe
August 8-24, 2025 (13 shows, 7:30pm, 90 min one act)
Left quad. Right quad. Lunge. A girls indoor soccer team warms up. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wage tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors. The Wolves is a portrait of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for nine American girls who just want to score some goals. As someone who didn’t have the normal high school experience, I found this play intriguing. I found it vulnerable, raw, but also refreshing. Delappe made these teens kids, but also adults. It showed them as the multi-faceted, amazing humans that they are, but also the messy humans that they are. It reminds us all where we were not too long ago, and we can’t help but chuckle. It also gives me hope for our future, but also reminds me where we need to focus our attention and continue educating our youth to the best of our ability, rather than abandoning them to the false narratives and childish games that adults play for power. I also found the focus on women in sports a refreshing subject matter, especially for teen girls, when Bend has a plethora of talented young actors to cast from. The entire cast is local, except for one. #14 was cast from out of New York, via Seattle. For some of these girls, it’s their swan song in Bend, as a handful of them will be leaving the day after closing to go to college. Katey James, for instance, flys out the morning after, to go to NYU: Tisch School of Arts. It’s an honor to be their last show, for now, in Bend, to prep them and send them on their way to amazing and endless possibilities in a career for the arts.
The Wolves is a one-act play by Sarah DeLappe. It premiered Off-Broadway at the Duke on 42nd Street in September 2016, produced by The Playwrights Realm. It centers on the experiences of high school girls through their weekly Saturday morning pre-game soccer warm ups. The Wolves received the American Playwriting Foundation’s inaugural Relentless Award in 2015, and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. The Economist reviewer wrote: “She has penned an absorbing portrait of female adolescence in The Wolves“. The play was a finalist in 2015-16 for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.[1] The play won the 2017 Obie Award for Ensemble work. The play was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The committee wrote: “For a timely play about a girls’ high school soccer team that illuminates with the unmistakable ping of reality the way young selves are formed when innate character clashes with external challenges.” Co-Directed by Founder John Kish and Greenhouse returnee Natalie Curtis (Liza’s Lounge). Costumes by Dora Novak. Set by Gary Loddo. Stage Managed by Whitney Baglien. Please Note: This production contains strong language, mature themes, and fierce women
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