Jess Honovich is the playwright of GIANT SLALOM, which opens this weekend and, as a an invitation to audiences, wrote the following note:

In 2016, I finished the first draft of Giant Slalom, a fast-paced play about three teenage professional ski racers all vying for a spot on the US Ski Team. I sent the play into the world and received praise for the strength of the text but pause at two variables: putting skiing onstage, and allowing teenagers to actually play the teenage characters in the show. It seemed that every organization I spoke with, every director I had coffee with, every person curious about the text believed these variables made the play impossible. How do you put skiing onstage? And how do you go about placing teenagers in the roles of the play, characters that not only curse and openly discuss menstruation and birth control, but actively sabotage each other?

Andy’s Summer Playhouse is an institution of yes. They’ve never met a challenge they weren’t excited to embrace, not to mention embrace by an eager 8–18-year-old. Yes, we can make actors ski onstage. Yes, a 17 year-old can compose original music and sound design to underscore the show. And yes, undoubtedly, real teen actors can act all the content in the play.

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