Last weekend, I took a trip down to San Diego to see my sister Carolyn perform in the play Sky Girls.
She was wonderful, of course. Let me tell you a bit about the play, so you can understand the character she was portraying.
The play is about five WASP (Womens Air Service Pilots) trainees in Sweetwater, Texas back in 1943. The WASP program is being run by the legendary female pilot Jackie Cochran, who is pushing hard to have Congress formally make the WASP part of the U.S. military. The five trainees and Jackie Cochran are the six characters in the play.
Carolyn plays Bishop, a senior trainee. Ever since she was a little girl, Bishop has known and idolized Jackie Cochran, which puts her in the difficult position of trying to keep the other trainees in line so they don’t make a public fuss about problems and thereby hurt the chances of Congress militarizing the WASP program. At the same time, the other trainees expect her to use her ralationship with Cochran to solve some of the problems they face (mostly related to prejudice by men against women pilots.)
Because of her pivotal position between Cochran and the other trainees, Carolyn gets a chance to do some very intense scenes in which she argues Cochran’s case with anothe trainee, and argues the trainees’ case with Cochran. Carolyn does a marvelous job in these scenes; you can feel the passion that she brings to the arguments.
I heard an interesting story from someone who works at the theater. After the matinee performance before the show I saw, a member of the audience told her that she had been very much caught up in the play. In fact, during a scene where Carolyn’s character was in a plane with engine trouble, the audience member had started praying for her to be all right, before remembering that it was just a play and that there was no real danger.
So, to conclude my little review, if you happen to be in San Diego before the play closes, I highly recommend that you go see it. It’s thought-provoking, funny, and has some great acting.