First they run the stairs and work their quads and core. Then they move on to a ball passing drill called the “spiderweb.”
You might think this is an athletic team warming up for practice. But these are not athletes, they are actors — and these kinds of drills have become routine as they rehearse for University Theatre’s upcoming production of Sarah DeLappe’s “The Wolves,” which opens on Feb. 16.
The play, which was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, centers on the experience of an indoor high school girls’ soccer team. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the girls navigate big questions and wage tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of young warriors.
Since the start of rehearsals before winter break, the cast has worked regularly with Romaric Setodji, the head men’s soccer coach at Edgewood College. He’s taught them foot skills, ball passing, conditioning exercises, and more.
“We’re doing a lot of conditioning, so we’ve been running stairs and doing things with resistance bands,” says Natalie Matthai, a senior theatre and marketing major. Matthai plays No. 7, the striker on the team.
“And then in terms of actual soccer we do a drill called the spiderweb, where we all start in four corners and work around the cones passing to each other,” adds Matthai.
“The Wolves” presents a funny and moving portrait of female athletes and their victories and defeats on and off the field.
“We wanted to pick a show that was about sisterhood,” says Audrey Standish, a lecturer in the School of Education’s Department of Theatre and Drama, and the show’s director. “This play really resonated.”
Working with Setodji has helped the cast to better understand their characters and what they are going through. “Without a soccer coach, we wouldn’t necessarily know what an actual soccer team would be doing before a soccer game,” says Sophia Schmidt, who plays No. 13, “the stoner,” and is a junior theatre and drama major.
“It’s really fun because I’ve never been on a sports team. We’re learning actual skills, so it’s not fake,” she adds.
Setodji says the actors have worked hard and improved their skills. “It’s been amazing,” he says. “I love working with actors, because they have this mindset of learning a new thing — they just embrace it.”
“It’s definitely helped us with teamwork,” says Maya Buffomante, who plays No. 14 and is a sophomore theatre and psychology major. “We’ve bonded over how much we hate running stairs.”
“The Wolves” was originally planned for March 2020. “We were about two weeks away from going into tech when COVID hit,” says Standish. Of course that production was postponed — and ultimately canceled. But this year, Standish thought: “Why don’t we just try to do it again, knowing that we’re going to have to recast the whole thing and start from scratch?”
Though most of the original cast has since graduated, Summer Kleppek, who was in her first year at UW–Madison in 2020, has returned to reprise her role as No. 8 in this new production, as has Jeanne Leap, a community member and professor at Edgewood College who plays the “soccer mom.”
Kleppek is now preparing to graduate with a major in music education and theatre and drama. “I am super excited to be doing ‘The Wolves’ again!” she says. “Back in 2020, it was the first University Theatre production I was cast in. When the show was canceled, it was devastating.”
Kleppek adds: “It is now going to be my last University Theatre production, and it is special that I get to come full circle with this show. It has been especially beautiful to see the other characters inhabited in different ways by different actors, which has informed by choices in my character in different ways. I’ve learned so much from this show.”
“The Wolves” will run Feb. 16 – 26 in the Department of Theatre and Drama’s Gilbert V. Helmsley Theatre in Vilas Hall (821 University Avenue). Full-price tickets are $26, with discounts available for children, seniors, and UW–Madison faculty, staff, and students.
Get your tickets now at artsticketing.wisc.edu or by calling 608-265-2787.
You can also read more about the show in this preview from the Capital Times.