The Hotchkiss Dramatic Association (HDA) will present this year’s winter mainstage production from Friday, February 21, to Sunday, February 23. Directed by Danielle Attoh ’25, Lucy Hall ’25, and Serena Salfiti ’25, the show will feature a collection of short one-act plays, all chosen to fit the theme “True Love Never Hides.”
The ten plays highlight love, conflict, and human connection. Hall will direct The Ball Girl Monologue, Joyride, and Stay for Dinner; Salfiti will direct The Wedding Bash, The Whole Shebang, and Report on Motherhood; and Attoh will direct As Long As Life Lasts, If We’re Using A Surrogate, Georgia Rose, and Before or After. Attoh said, “Our goal was to showcase the various types of ‘true love’—whether that be a mother’s love, platonic love, or romantic love.”
The HDA team has been preparing for this production since the directors held auditions in November. Attoh said, “I’m directing multiple plays, so I was looking for different things for each cast, but in general I was looking for people willing to work towards an excellent production while also having fun.”
Arielle Sibley-Grice ’26, a previous director of and actor in Black Box plays, will be making her mainstage debut in As Long As Life Lasts. She said, “I’ve really enjoyed this experience, because Black Boxes involve a lot of rehearsals concentrated into a short period of time, while the mainstage allowed more opportunities and time to develop our plays.” The casts have rehearsed multiple times each week since December.
Students enrolled in the Theatr Tech winter cocurricular worked alongside Mr. Derek Brashears, director of theater and resident designer, to create the set for the production. Attoh said, “Mr. Brashears aimed to have a set that could work for all the plays, and, with the audience’s imagination, could be transformed into different sets.”
Looking ahead to this weekend, Grice said, “I am excited to see the polished versions of all the other plays, because we have only met with all the casts once before. Everyone has been putting a lot of work into their plays, so it will be exciting to see what they’ve done since our last rehearsal.”
