The Wolves

Cora excelled in her opening weekend of Wolves. Yes, opening weekend - they have a two week, 8-show run at the Main in Newhall. Her community theater debut!

Wolves tells the story of a teen girls indoor soccer team through the course of six weeks of their season. It's all told from the perspective of their warmup area, with the girls' conversations propelling the story forward.

Cora plays the very anxious goalie. She has very few lines for the first half of the play, as her character is super nervous pregame, and often runs offstage to puke.

And incident happens between these two friends on a ski trip, leading to a big fight.

And in Week 5 (one scene taking place each week), Cora takes the spotlight. The scene opens with her alone on stage, crumpled in a ball, sobbing. 

She then melts down, rips out her pony tail, throws off her shirt, screams, and then collapses in tears.

The audience was silent enough to hear a pin drop. No one knows what has happened to make 00 (characters are mainly known only by their jersey number) fall apart.

In the following (and final, long) scene, the next week, the girls slowly come on stage, one by one, and as the conversations unfold, you can gather that one of the players was hit by a car and killed.

Cora finally has a monologue - she no longer feels nervous about the game. (She doesn't need to say it outright, but it's clear that the loss of a loved one helped her realize that soccer games aren't life and death situations.)

Her acting throughout is impeccable. In fact, all the girls are outstanding. The best of their high schools or colleges, coming across as very real, relatable characters.

A new character shows up - we realize this is the Soccer Mom, whose daughter died in the crash. She has a long, meandering, grief-stricken speech, leaving most of the audience in tears. Cora is crying behind her - again, stellar acting. I can't watch her without tearing up.

It was a moving, heartfelt show. Not an easy watch, and a LOT of swearing from a couple of the characters, with more adult subject matter. Real, gritty.

We're all so proud of Cora for tackling this role (pun intended) and scoring.