ACGC Drama Presents “The Frozen Standoff”
The ACGC Drama Department will present a one-act play – “The Frozen Standoff” – on Thursday, January 16th at 7 p.m. in the ACGC High School Theater. Admission is $5.
Director Thomas Dougherty Rosengren wrote the play which is based on the Willmar 8 – a group of ladies who stood up to their bosses at a bank in Willmar in the 1970s demanding workplace equality as they were training in men who would then get promoted. He says there are 16 students on stage for the production and he could see them standing up for themselves just like the characters they portray.
Rosengren says the students have 10-minutes to get their set prepared and 35-minutes to perform and they will compete against 8 other schools in the region during a competition on January 24th at Dassel-Cokato, and two of them will go on to the state competition. He says the students have been preparing for the past 6 weeks and he’s hoping they get a good crowd on January 16th.
ACGC senior Elizabeth Thyen has been doing musicals at ACGC for 6 years and “The Frozen Standoff” is her second one-act play. She says she’s in the role of Irene.
Thyen says she had not heard of the Willmar 8 until she got involved in this one-act production of “The Frozen Standoff.” She says it’s impressive how these women impacted their community and she’s eager to show the public how hard the students have been working on this production.
ACGC 9th grader Makaylen Carlson says she plays a meek character named Shirley who finds her voice during the course of the protest. She says the story of the Willmar 8 teaches important lessons.
Carlson says this is her second one-act play at ACGC and she’s also performed at the Barn Theater in Willmar. Rosengren has been directing musicals and one-act plays at ACGC for 9 years and has also directed at the Barn Theater in Willmar. He says 4 of the Willmar 8 will be speaking to students at ACGC on January 16th and will also attend the performance that evening. He says he had students watch the movie “A Matter of Sex” starring Jean Stapleton which was based on the story of the Willmar 8.
