Set in the Civil Rights era, UNCW's 'Southern Girls' fosters racial dialogue

But finally, there's a show for student actors with six female leads. Under the direction of Kindra Steenerson, a part-time faculty member, University of North Carolina Wilmington's Theatre Department will launch its fall performance season with Southern Girls, opening today at the campus's new (and fabulous) Cultural Arts Center.

Sheri Bailey and Dura Temple, who published Southern Girls in 1996, have written a refreshing script that not only creates new female roles, but also features a diverse cast.

The play takes place in the early 1950s during the Civil Rights era in a small Alabama town. Six girls grow up playing together, but discover complicated struggles with their identities and friendships as they enter their teenage years. Wanda-Sue (played by recent graduate Nikkita Johnson) is half black and half white, and swings between the world of her white half-sister, Charlotte (Elisabeth Wallace), her white friends, Dolly (Angela Conicelli) and June-Adele (Kate MacCallum), and her black friends, Ruth (Omaria Pratt) and Naomi (Keisha Barnhart).

As the show progresses, following the girls from childhood to middle-age, each woman develops differently, reflecting the effects of the turbulent and changing South. The cast also features girls doubling as the actresses in their younger years.

Set designer Fereshteh Rostampour and costume designer Mark Sorensen have worked closely to create a tight color scheme of reds and purples. The stage displays a conceptual split, with two sinking structures; a run-down farmhouse sinking into the ground on one side of the stage, with antebellum columns resting collapsed and broken on the other.

The play's co-authors, Sheri Bailey and Dura Temple, are black and white, respectively, and wrote from their unique experiences. Paul Castagno, chair of UNCW's theater department, worked in the developmental stages of this play in 1991 at the University of Alabama, when Southern Girls went to the American College Theatre Festival and was selected as a national alternate.

The show is co-sponsored by the university's diversity organization, the Upperman African-American Center and is part of UNCW's mission to increase diversity by raising awareness and engaging in conversations with the Wilmington community. To further that, playwright Sheri Bailey will engage in a Q&A following tonight's performance.