Pentacle’s Boy Gets Girl questions our assumptions about love

See Pentacle Theatre’s production of Boy Gets Girl on stage June 7-29

At first sight, Pentacle Theatre’s production of Boy Gets Girl may elicit feelings of a classic Hollywood romance: An accomplished career woman, feeling unfulfilled in her personal life, is set up on a blind date. It offers the excitement of pursuit. The possibility of two unlikely people finding love.

“At the beginning, it’s evocative of a rom-com,” says Director Emily Loberg. But audiences will learn quickly that Boy Gets Girl doesn’t fit neatly into a single genre. “I’m trying to direct it to take audiences on a journey.”

The journey will cross over from romance to chiller after the lead, Theresa, agrees to a second date with Tony and then realizes it’s not what she’s looking for. Tony responds to Theresa’s rejection with obsessive and threatening behavior.

Emily’s own journey with the play started four years ago, long before she’d be making her lead in-person directorial debut at Pentacle. She was at the library looking for a different script when she stumbled into Boy Gets Girl by Rebecca Gilman.

“I started reading it by accident, but read the whole thing in a day,” she said.

Before staging a single element of the script, Emily said the cast – “all really kind humans and all really hard-working” — spent a week discussing the play. In their conversations, they found every person had their own story relating to harassment or another difficult theme of the story. 

“It can be cathartic to have those stories told on stage,” Emily said. 

Audiences will likely come away from the play feeling disturbed, but Emily also hopes they have a renewed urgency to question assumptions about love, relationships, and success.

“Some of the things the play explores is how romantic love is the highest form of love. That can create isolation,” Emily said, “and the pressure to give in when someone doesn’t really want to.”

Boy Gets Girl

When: 7:30 p.m. June 7-8, 13-15, 20-22, 27-29 and 2 p.m. June 9, 16 and 22-23
Where: Pentacle Theatre, 324 52nd Ave. NW
Click here for tickets.

Author: Joce Johnson

Joce Johnson is a writer, content designer, and a true believer in the stories Salem has to offer. If she’s not walking her beloved neighborhood, she’s likely spending way too much time in a thrift shop or pining over her family’s next trip.