Daniel Bird Tobin
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This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries,
This Girl Does Nothing

This Girl Laughs,
This Girl Cries,
This Girl Does Nothing

By Finegan Kruckemeyer
Centre College - 2023

Directed by Daniel Bird Tobin

Our core artifact for this show was a cluttered, old antique shop with all its amazing old trinkets and possibilities. This image informed the entire design aesthetic as well as the performance style.
Picture

Picture

About the Show

"Triplet sisters are left in the forest by their woodcutter father. From this fairytale beginning, three resolutions are made – one sister will walk one way, one the other, and the third will stay right where she is. Twenty years later, having circumnavigated the globe, and fought vikings, and crossed oceans, and tamed wilds, and achieved greatness, the three meet again, as women."

Production Photos

Photos courtesy of Brian Oates

Director's Note


This wood is a doorway to everything beyond our house and our village and our childhood and our experiences.
-- Finegan Kruckemeyer
 Growing up, I had a book of poetry by A.A. Milne. Its pages are covered in the scribbles and drawings of four-year-old me. Whether those scribbles mean I loved or hated the book, I’ll leave for you to decide. Whatever the case, several of those poems have continued to dance round my brain in one way or another for decades. While working on this play, I had one in particular keep coming to mind.
“Swing Song”

Here I go up in my swing
  Ever so high.
I am the King of the fields, and the King
      Of the town.
I am the King of the earth, and the King
      Of the sky.
Here I go up in my swing...
      Now I go down.

As a child, I probably loved the majesty of being King of Everything. While undoubtedly that still holds a certain cachet, now I love the majesty of the speaker’s imagination and their bravery in swinging ever so high. 

At this point in my life, one year older than the sisters will be at the end of the play you are about to see, I’m also now so much more aware of that moment of going down. 

And that’s what I love about this play. It contains all of life. The moments of conquering the world. And the moments of falling back to earth. It's a play of growth and learning and experiences and strength. It is also a play about doing, of making a choice and acting on it. And maybe having a friend along the way. Much like this other Milne poem. 
“The Morning Walk”

When Anne and I go out a walk,
We hold each other's hand and talk
Of all the things we mean to do
When Anne and I are forty-two.

And when we've thought about a thing,
Like bowling hoops or bicycling,
Or falling down on Anne's balloon,
We do it in the afternoon.

I invite you to join us as we go through the woods, through the doorway, into everything beyond. 
    --Daniel 
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  • Home
  • Communicating Science
  • Directing
    • About
    • Recent Directing Projects >
      • Alice by Heart
      • This Girl Laughs
      • Angels in America
      • The Theory of Relativity
      • Macbeth
      • Puffs
    • Older Directing Projects >
      • Addison & the Black Hole
      • The Tempestuous and Tessellated Tens
      • Summer Youth Theatre
    • Dramaturgy Projects >
      • Conference of the Birds
      • on display
      • [De/As]cending
      • Out of Many
  • Performing
    • About
    • An Iliad
    • Conqueror of the Western Marches
    • Flatland
    • Macbeth
    • Out of Many
  • Teaching
  • Contact & CV