Girl Next Door Theatre

(From L-R: Stephen Foley, Meredith Mullins, Nancy Schmitt, and Nancy Upton)

“You never know who is living next door.”

So say Girl Next Door Theatre, the newly formed New Orleans theatre group with a feminist take on the performing arts. Founded by Meredith Mullins and Nancy Schmitt, GNDT is focused on going beyond what they see as simplistic portrayals of women in art. From the website:

Our desire to produce a discourse on gender and sexuality goes beyond women’s genders and women’s sexuality, because feminism isn’t a singular ideology. It is a lens, a conceptual framework to analyze and understand our everyday life; why we do the things we do, and how we can change what we determine to be a structural inequity or lack of agency. A discussion of humanity.

Recently, GNDT staged an adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, entitled No Exit (from the Zombie Apocalypse) at Byrdie’s, as part of the New Orleans Fringe Festival. Adapted and directed by Mullins and featuring Schmitt (Hazel/Estelle), Nancy Upton (Edith/Inez) and Stephen Foley (Joseph), the play offered a subtly modernized take on Sartre’s classic play, playing on the strengths of the female characters (especially Edith) to create a decidedly female-centric dialogue in a play that is generally not considered feminist. It also incorporated the latest supernatural critical darlings— zombies—to grimly hilarious effect. When asked “why Sartre?” Schmitt responded:

I will say that picking a play by a male-focused author and having it performed by a group that's outspokenly feminist is, to me, a form of subversion. Directors were almost exclusively male in Sartre's day, so I imagine he would be baffled to see a woman at the helm of one of his productions, much less rewriting it to fit her vision. I think it's kind of a metaphor. We, as women, live in a world that's been scripted by the patriarchy and part of what my theatre company wants to do is rewrite that script.

GNDT is currently working on a showcase featuring both original works and adaptations by female playwrights, including Mullins. So if you’re looking for some female-focused theatre and you want to support some burgeoning local talent, check out Girl Next Door Theatre.

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