THE DANVERS VARSITY FIELD HOCKEY COVEN OF 1989
Dear Darkness,
1989 could be OUR year … If we weren't a hot, stinking pile of garbage! We, the eleven senior members of the Danvers High School varsity field hockey team, will willingly sell our souls if “doing bad things” means winning games. The more we explore our darkest impulses, the more covenly connected we become to each other and the more we learn about ourselves. Come along with us to Danvers, MA (which happens to also be the site of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials) to help us unleash the wild, weird, wicked magic of teen femmehood.
Yours, the '89 Falcons
"Field, field, field!
Hockey, hockey, hockey, bitches"
​
Our Story
When Maeli moved to Massachusetts in 2021, she picked We Ride Upon Sticks off the shelf at her local book store hoping it might teach her something about her new home. She began to read and swiftly realized...This is a musical. Maeli called up her best composer-collaborator friend (and former field hockey player) Allison, and the dream team was born. With Quan Barry's blessing, the pair wrote and rewrote for a year before bringing the fruits of their labor to Princeton Summer Theater in 2023. There, with a brilliant team of young performers, they finally heard it out loud for the first time and decided it was worth telling the world about. They continue to develop the work and are planning a 2024 workshop in New York City.
WHO WE ARE
Maeli Goren-Wilson (she/her)
...is a multi-hyphenate artist and educator telling inclusive stories to bring joy. She has collaborated with regional theaters and educational organizations across the East Coast and Midwest, with some favorites including Playmakers Laboratory, Imagination Theater, Something Marvelous, and Silk Road Rising in Chicagoland, Yale Center for British Art and Dwight-Edgewood Project in New Haven, Manton Avenue Project, Trinity Repertory Company, and Rhode Island Latino Arts in Providence, and Portland Stage in Portland. Maeli earned her AB in Comparative Literature from Princeton University (magna cum laude/Phi Beta Kappa) with certificates in Theater and Brazilian Studies. She recently completed her MFA in Directing at Yale School of Drama, where she served as Co-Artistic Director of the Yale Cabaret. Maeli is now the Theater Director at Pingree School in South Hamilton, MA, where she holds space for high school drama on and off the stage. www.maeligoren.com
Allison Spann (any pronouns)
...is a Brooklyn-based performance artist who believes in voice and collaborative art-making as radical tools for healing. Winner of the 2020 Princeton Concerto Competition as a solo soprano, their work as a vocalist spans countless genres, and includes credits with Gustavo Dudamel, Darcy James Argue, and her co-produced jazz project, the Constellation Big Band. Her work as a composer/playwright includes a solo album, incidental music, and full-length pieces of music theater. Recognitions for generative work include: Semifinalist for the 2022 National Music Theater Conference, the 2020 Edward T. Cone Memorial Prize in Music Scholarship, and the 2019 Richardson Auditorium Artist Residency. They are the founder and producer of NOGO Arts, a summer performing arts series in the Adirondacks, and a graduate from Princeton University. Spann constantly seeks to expand her understanding of the world through new ways of storytelling and making. www.allisonspann.com
