Franny Mestrich '19 (independent major in theater) launched a creative, collaborative career in the active Philadelphia theater community just months after graduation, joining socially minded theater collective Ninth Planet as artistic associate. Mestrich's academic and professional experience serve her well in supporting Ninth Planet's mission to create space and opportunity for "people of color, women, queer, and trans people in Philadelphia to participate in the making, performing, and producing of community-powered performance." Fun fact: fellow Theater Program alum Katie Croyle '11 (independent major in theater) co-founded Ninth Planet, went on to receive an M.F.A in acting at Brown University/Trinity Rep, and now serves as the company's creative advisor.
Mestrich's connection with Ninth Planet began during the Theater Program's Spring 2017 production, "Particular Risk," directed and written, respectively, by company co-founders Sam Tower and Jeremy Grable. Mestrich wrangled the "psychedelic noir" production's many moving parts including a cast of 10 and live musical performances. Mestrich notes, "Working with Sam and Jeremy at Bryn Mawr felt like an introduction to the kind of performance work I wanted to be making." She went on to work with Tower off campus, serving as assistant stage manager for the director's "Red Bike" in its National New Play Network world premiere at Simpatico Theater.
Mestrich further developed her chops in key crew roles in Bryn Mawr's mainstage productions, serving as assistant director or dramaturg for "The Government Inspector," "Mr. Burns - A Post-Electric Play," and "Eurydice." She also gained experience with Bryn Mawr partner institution the University of Pennsylvania, serving as assistant dramaturg for "A Puppeteer with the Palsy Performs Scenes from Shakespeare" at the Annenberg Center.
Mestrich launched development of her senior thesis, "Pulp," while immersed in a semester-long performance training program at Philadelphia's Headlong Performance Institute (then in partnership with the Bi-Co Theater Program). Back at Bryn Mawr, she worked with a team of fellow students to bring the work to a fully staged production in the Hepburn Teaching Theater. Inspired by lesbian pulp fiction, "Pulp" investigated "the humor and tragedy of queer culture in the McCarthy Era," following newly-married Jane as she confronted "a reality she would rather ignore." Four actors in "Pulp" played multiple roles, including fellow theater alum Madeline Shuron '19 who was both "Susan" and "Virginia" (independent major in theater, pictured).
As artistic associate, Mestrich is one of a team of artists adapting Ninth Planet's young-adult play "Honey Honey" into a community-sourced film, transforming the theatrical script co-written by a queer and trans creative team with contributions from young LGBTQ artists from The Attic Youth Center. She is clearly invested, noting her work on the queer youth coming-of-age story "is one of the most artistically exciting and rewarding projects" of her career so far. She explains, "Ninth Planet rejects the limitations of conventional theater-making. Instead we invest in long-form processes, narrative abstraction, and people over product. Every project is a chance to experiment, not only with content but with how we create. We're constantly reinventing our process in order to support our collaborators and push ourselves artistically."
True to their collaborative nature, Ninth Planet has an open call for creative works of all types for the Honey Honey Film Project. Submissions are welcome through Saturday, Oct. 31. Learn more at the project hub and reach out to ninthplanetprojects@gmail.com for more details.
Learn more about the Theater Program and contact Professor and Director Mark Lord at https://mailto:ninthplanetprojects@gmail.com for more information.