Kailua Onstage Arts makes debut with ‘The Wolves’

Kailua Onstage Arts promises an unusual theatrical experience Friday with the opening of “The Wolves.”

If you haven’t heard of this performing group, it’s the new kid on the block — a brand-new Windward theater company making its debut.

The company’s founder and artistic director, Kevin Keaveney, said he chose to open the theater with something bold, in keeping with KOA’s mission statement.

“The mission is to produce plays that give voice to the voiceless, to voices that have not been represented well in the majority of plays produced in America,” Keaveney said, referring to traditional theater’s lack of narrative diversity when it comes to gender, economic condition, race or geographical location. “When I read the play, it opened a window onto a world that I was unfamiliar with, which was that of teenage girls.”

In a raw and rambunctious instance of life imitating art, “The Wolves” depicts a girls soccer teams bonding during pre-game warmups, presented by a cast of nine young women who experienced some unique cast bonding of their own.

Customarily, when an actor auditions and is accepted, a particular role is offered. Stacy Ray, the show’s director and a University of Hawaii theater professor, chose her performers, but waited to assign parts. Instead, she took them to the park for some hands-on soccer playing with the help of two professional coaches: Gwenette Higa (a defensive fullback) and Donna Fouts (a goalie), who play with the Women’s Island Soccer Association.

“The play is called ‘The Wolves’ because they are a pack. They’re fierce, they’re ferocious, they protect each other, they attack each other,” said Ray, who watched the girls’ interactions as they settled into their own comfortable dynamic on the field. “If I had cast it out of the gate, I would have been wrong. Having waited, I was able to see — this relationship fits this set of actors.”

Ray’s smile broadened as she considered the liveliness the girls brought to rehearsal, honing their roles as vibrant young women finding their niche in the world. She praised the actors as “wonderfully magical and super smart.”

THE ACTORS range in age from 14 to 20. Playwright Sarah DeLappe herself was still a young college student when she wrote the script, to instant acclaim. It premiered off-Broadway, becoming a 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist.

“The Wolves” begins as the girls warm up for a game, letting the audience witness the rush of overlapping dialogue in that heightened environment. It’s an innovative setting for a play.

“Our audiences will see something they’ve not seen before,” Keaveney said. “There’s a flood of teenage talk that on the surface seems banal, but DeLappe lets significant moments pop up, moments of deep philosophical thought, sadness and joy. It’s a very funny play, and at the same time deeply moving. You really get invested in the lives of these girls.”

For Keaveney, the opening of this show realizes a long-standing dream. When he moved to Hawaii nine years ago to raise a family, he thought he was saying goodbye to his theatrical career. Instead, he found a talented and lively performing community in Honolulu, and a gap that he was only too happy to fill.

“I felt there was a place for offbeat, more challenging work than was being done,” he said.

Keaveney brings a wealth of experience to his role. He studied drama at Yale, then immersed himself in all manner of theater in New York. For nearly 20 years he performed and directed off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway, helped launch some prestigious theatrical festivals and even opened his own theater company.

On Oahu, he decided on Kailua as a home base, noting a dearth of entertainment on the Windward side.

Beyond its regular seasonal lineup, which will include at least one musical, Keaveney envisions Kailua Onstage Arts blossoming into a conservatory for the arts. A spattering of programs are already in place, including an assortment of performance classes, and KOA is making plans to teach after-school drama.

Meanwhile, Keaveney is also owner and founder of themed haunted attraction Skeleton Key Hawaii, which enjoyed a successful debut in Kailua last year under the artistic direction of “Hawaii Five-0” actor Jorge Garcia. The haunt will open again in October, with profits funding KOA.