By Nora Greeley

Tonight, Hannah, South Stage’s first production of the season, is having its world premier. The production, written and directed by senior Emily Snider, is a comedy that addresses serious issues like mental illness and sexism using satire.

Snider wrote the first draft of Hannah last summer, and since then it has been edited countless times by the many different collaborators. Snider’s main goals were to make people laugh and to convey to her audiences that teenage girls have a voice and that they have the right to use it.

Check out what Snider has to say leading up to the opening of her show.

In short, what is Hannah about?

Hannah is a one act show that’s based around a high school girl named Hannah. It is expressionist, which means that it’s not really based on reality a lot of times, although the issues that she goes through are real. It’s all through her lense, so it’s not as much watching the life of a teenage girl but seeing things the way a teenage girl would. A lot of things are over-exaggerated. For example, a lot of the adult characters are very insanely overbearing and intense, which may not be 100% accurate or truthful, but it’s the way that we perceive things. She deals with mental illness, like that kind of diagnosis with her doctor and her mom. She deals with the whole process of like being friendzoned, and her crazy friends, like all the issues that I think are central to being a high school girl.

Does Hannah express her thoughts through monologues?

She doesn’t have monologues. She does have a couple but they’re not addressing the audience. It’s actually really mostly visual. So if you come to the show you’ll see that the costumes are over exaggerated. For example, the mom wearing head-to-toe Lululemon and the doctor is dressed in a really creepy outfit. Everyone’s really decked out. The set pieces are really over-exaggerated. It’s all kind of actually living in the mind of a teenage girl. Also, the characterization of a lot of the characters are through the lense. So everything that they’re saying has been processed by her brain and we’re seeing and hearing the projected version of Hannah’s perception.

What is the main obstacle that Hannah faces?

So her main obstacle, which I think is similar to a lot teenage girls, is that she doesn’t really know how to say “no” or how to stand up for herself. That’s pretty evident in the first scene when her doctor and her mom are basically diagnosing her without listening to her. She doesn’t know how to say “no, this is wrong, I’m fine.” She doesn’t know how to advocate for herself at all. She’s really confronted by this issue when a boy that likes her and she just thinks he’s a friend kisses her, and she just doesn’t know what to do so she just kisses him back because she’s a passive person and she doesn’t know how to deal with it. Through this lesson of learning even that though what I’m doing seems like the selfless thing to do, you know helping other people and not being selfish or saying “this is what I want”, it actually does hurt more people when you’re not being forward with how you feel and your emotions. That’s actually more hurtful to people a lot of the time than just accepting everything that comes.

What was involved in the process of creating this play?

I wrote it last summer, I got a lot of notes from a lot of different people. I sent it to I think 15 people. I just wanted to get as many notes as possible. People would say things like “hey I think this is a little too offensive” or like “This doesn’t work here so maybe put it somewhere else”. That was really helpful. Also just Mr. K and the entire design team have added so much to this project it’s insane. They’ve made all the sets and costumes and everything. Being able to collaborate like that and being at the steering wheel in the collaboration process has been so incredibly rewarding for me. I know after doing this that I want to direct in the future because I love it. Also the actors have really taken these characters and ran with them. I purposefully casted actors that I trusted analytically and comedically, So I trusted that they would be able to develop these characters into what they are.

All of the characters know all the themes and we’ve had multiple sit down conversations about the show and all their characters’ objectives. I basically told everyone except for Hannah “you’re playing a cartoon character”.  Its to different extents and levels but most of the time a lot of the characters are just cartoon characters. That is a big vehicle of comedy but I also think that it’s a big vehicle for truth. I’m a big fan of using comedy to deliver truth because I think that’s the most effective way.

Did you try to incorporate comedy into Hannah? If so, how did you balance the comedic aspects of the play and the seriousness of the issues it deals with?

It’s a comedic show. Like it’s a comedy and hopefully people will laugh. It’s definitely 100% a comedy, but like I said, I like to use comedy to deliver the truth. One of the main issues that it also faces is sexism. Sexism in the classroom from adults and from peers. Most of the sexism that Hannah confronts and that I’ve confronted as a teenage girl isn’t overt, it’s covert sexism. It’s not like saying “you are lesser”, it’s just kind of the little things that people do. So I’ve tried to incorporate some of those aspects that I know some people will relate to. Like “Oh wait that’s not normal that my teacher said that to me, that’s uncomfortable.”

In the writing, it was difficult to balance the seriousness of the issues and the comedy, because I would want a joke to be in there that didn’t really fit. That is in general one of the hardest parts of writing comedy for me because you have to really find that balance. It’s something that I really like to do, but it’s definitely one of the harder parts of writing.

Is there any message you want people to take away from Hannah?

I think it’s that teenage girls should have a voice and should be comfortable having a voice. I actually just wrote a director’s note and I talked about this, but I have found that there are few to none accurate representations of teenage girls in the media and in movies and TV. You have these three basic archetypes: there’s the bitchy hot girl, the nerdy girl, and the goth girl, and none of them are interesting or complex characters. All  three of them are usually driven by what the men want and driven by love. They make it seem like every single female friendship can be ripped apart in a second by a guy and that’s just not true. That’s not accurate to what I’ve seen in high school or what I’ve experienced. So I think the main message is that teenage girls deserve a place in this world and we should be carving out that place for ourselves.

Was Hannah based on your high school experience?

The situation is very cliché in high school, like the idea of being in the friend zone. So basically that story can probably be told by every girl in this school. There’s a guy that you thought was your friend and then it turns out he likes you and then you’re like “wait so are we not friends anymore now that I don’t like you back?” That kind of thing. It’s definitely happened to me, it’s definitely happened to a lot of my best friends. It’s not based on anyone, though. It’s just kind of that basic story line.

How do you plan to differentiate Hannah from previous performances that have used that common story line?

When that story’s told, it’s always told from the male perspective, so either the girl is a total bitch or the girl is like “never mind, I love you”, which is ridiculous. They never get to actually sit down and have and emotional process and be like, “hey, I don’t like you back,” and even though it’s a really awkward and painful thing for someone to experience. Girls are never given the experience to express that and I think that’s dangerous, especially since it’s such a common issue in high school and in life.