UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY
November 7–15, 2025
Melanie Laycock Bastian Theatre
PROGRAM
Approximate running time 90 minutes with one 15 minute intermission
Isabelle Purdie
CAST
(In order of Appearance)
Olympe De Gouges
Paola Molina Guzman Marianne Angelle
Tabitha Whittekiend Charlotte Corday
Eryn Hales Marie-Antoinette
PRODUCTION TEAM
La Beene Producer
Elizabeth Golden Director
Madeline Cockrell Stage Manager
Richard Lorig Scenic Designer
Lillian Hanks Costume Designer
Sydney Wilson Hair & Makeup Designer
Caleb Wallengren Lighting Designer
Hannah Michels Sound Designer
Scott Savage Accessibility Coordinator
Daisy Wilcox Assistant Director
Natalie Kuhni Assistant Stage Manager
Kaycee Goff Assistant Scenic Designer
PRODUCTION CREW
Chloe Ashby
Logan Chipman
Mia Clark
CJ Myler
Riah Packer
Avery Rindlisbach
Raya Tanner
Emma Tyson
Gemma Valentine
Cameron Wahlquist
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Jan. 2021: I read The Revolutionists for the first time and fall instantly for the witty, fierce, passionate women at its center. The play feels like a call to action for all artists to fight for their convictions — to make bold claims and take big risks, and to use our voices for change. Fun!
Nov. 2024: UVU announces it will produce the play. I leap at the chance to direct it, eager to bring these four revolutionaries to life for a new audience.
March 2025: I am spending an evening with dozens of auditioning young women, sharing my enthusiasm for this dramatic comedy that refuses to soften the stakes. My aim is simple: to breathe life into these women who are willing to risk — and imagine — the kinds of change that make a society more just.
Sept. 8, 2025: Rehearsals begin. The room crackles with energy — designers, actors, and the directing team collaborating, laughing at the wit, and leaning into the gravity of what we were creating together. I feel like the leader of a small army, readying ourselves to take down the man!
Sept. 10, 2025: Tragedy befalls our campus. The vibrating tensions of a nation divided become an earthquake. Then, exactly one week later we are back in rehearsals, but the jokes and witty banter around the character Charlotte Corday — the young woman who assassinated Marat in his bathtub in 1793 — suddenly feel like a grenade sans pin in my hand.
Sept. 18, 2025: I sit in my office with the script in front of me, searching for a way back to this play after what our community has experienced. Historical fiction isn’t new. Shakespeare wrote Henry IV centuries after the real Henry died to speak to his moment; Miller wrote The Crucible to address the McCarthy era. But did Gunderson really write a play as a call to action for artists to do the unthinkable in the name of political ideology?
I found the path back in one of Olympe’s lines toward the end of the play. I won’t share it here, but I encourage you to listen for it. With The Revolutionists, Gunderson is inviting us to consider a saner way through the political tempest we are living in. You are doing it now by sitting in this theater with friends and strangers.
“The beating hearts in front of you are real. The gathering of people is real. The time we spend together, this time, is real.” May we transform conflict into conversation, criticism into care, and assembly into healing.