“If she’s in the closet, she’s in there deep.” This line, said by psychology freshman Reyna Thomas during UTD Theater’s spring show, ‘She Kills Monsters,’ encapsulates the play’s themes of identity, acceptance and what it means to be queer in a heteronormative world. The show ran from Feb. 26 to March 1 with performances taking place each day within the University Theatre.

UTD Theater is a student-run organization on campus. They typically put on two shows a year: a musical in the fall and a straight play in the spring. This year’s straight play was ‘She Kills Monsters.’

This play, written by Qui Nguyen, premiered at the Flea Theater in New York City on Nov. 4, 2011. It was described by the UTD Bass School as “a celebration of the geek and warrior in all of us with a moving look at grief, identity and the bonds of sisterhood.”

The play, set in 1990s Ohio, includes mostly queer characters. Sibyl Kempson, theatre professor and director of the shows, describes the reasons behind this choice.

“‘She Kills Monsters’ [explores] the struggle to fit in and be accepted [and how] that gets pitted against not being accepted, or wanting to have your own life,” she said. 

Stage manager Marco Pinheiro further explained the importance of these topics.

“I think that it’s important to portray life as it is and to give people a platform to feel represented,” Pinheiro said. “At that point in time, you could have been killed for liking who you like. So, to put on a play about that really honours the people who went through that time.”

Moreover, Kempson described the reality of putting on a show with potentially controversial themes.

“There were no more issues [with performing an LGBT+ play at a Texas college] than there would be any other theme,” said Kempson. “Nobody in the room had a problem with it, and if they did they kept quiet about it.”

The play tells the story of Agnes Evans, played by Elise Valleau, who is grieving for her deceased sister Tilly, played by Sylvie Stafford. Tilly had left behind a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, which Agnes, plays in order to learn more about her sister’s life, despite not having these stereotypically ‘nerdy’ interests.

The whole play revolves around Tilly’s Dungeons and Dragons game. Pinheiro said there’s a lot of interest in ‘She Kills Monsters’ as the play of choice for this semester. 

“D&D goes very well with UTD. Like, we’re a very nerdy school, so it just made sense for us to do this one,” they said.

Thomas, who played Vera and The Beholder in the performances, said that she was initially skeptical about this fact.

“I was also like, what if this is kind of dorky? Like it’s D&D vibes. I don’t do that stuff. …I’m never embarrassed about [Vera]. If I was one of the dorky actual D&D characters I feel like that’d be a little different.”

Open auditions for the play took place on Jan. 23, with callbacks supposed to occur the following day. However, nature struck in the form of the winter storm that had the whole university closed for the week of Jan. 26. Therefore, callbacks were forced to be pushed until the university re-opened on Jan. 30.

The closure meant that the cast were behind on their rehearsal schedule from the very beginning, which created concern among them surrounding whether they would be ready by the time it came to their pre-determined show dates.

“We lost pretty much any time to actually run the show,” said Pinheiro. “By the time you get to tech, you should be like a well-oiled machine. And we were just starting out.”

Thomas said she was concerned about the audience because she felt the play wasn’t “super advertised.” Kempson, meanwhile, said that she put up some extra posters of her own accord due to feeling that the play was under-advertised.

“I think that there was supposed to be [advertisement] but somehow it fell short,” said Kempson.

“It’s at the director’s discretion whether or not we promote the show as much… and she said you know, like, good enough,” said Pinheiro. “I do prefer when we promote the shows pretty well because it brings in more people for auditions, to work on the set, to work in the crew.”

The performances were free and non-ticketed events, operating on a first-come, first-served basis. The audiences, who could be observed laughing, calling out and cheering, were filled with families and Comets alike. 

Pinheiro said, “we do free tickets [for straight plays] because we never get a packed house,” which differs from musicals which often come with an established fan-base. For example, tickets to the “Shrek” performances in October were only free with a comet card in person, with online tickets being sold for $12 to $15.

Students who participated in the play actually had the opportunity to earn three academic credits for their work if they registered for the course titled “Performance Ensemble.”

“I encouraged everyone who could sign up for it to sign up for it,” said Kempson.

However, Thomas said, “I clearly didn’t get the memo.”

On UTD schedule planner, the class was listed as being for three hours on a Thursday. Thomas initially registered for the class, but dropped it as she could not fit this time slot into her schedule.

“I found out later that the class was just a placeholder, but because I’d dropped it I didn’t get credit,” she said.

Thomas said that she decided to audition for ‘She Kills Monsters’ because she wanted to find a way to keep acting whilst at college. 

“UTD doesn’t have the best acting program so the classes weren’t great here,” she said. 

She added that she initially signed up for some acting classes this semester but dropped them. She felt that classes were not advanced enough for her to benefit from, nor were the professors’ notes on technique. One of these was “Acting for Film and Video,” of which she said, “I dropped it day one.”

In actuality, rehearsals for the play took place from 5:30-10:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Both Kempson and Thomas said the rehearsals were the biggest challenge of being involved in the production. 

“Everything would be closed [after rehearsal] except for Comet Pi, so I wouldn’t really be able to eat,” said Thomas.

Despite the challenges, Thomas and Kempson agreed that the ‘She Kills Monsters’ shows were a success. 

“You never really have such good shows as we did back to back, ever,” said Thomas. 

“I had a wonderful experience,” said the director.