Senior Theatre Major Directs “The Drowning Girls”

(ABILENE, Texas)–Hardin-Simmons Theatre major Bridgett Mistrot will be directing the play The Drowning Girls for the HSU Theatre Department’s annual “Director’s Cut Series.” The play will be Feb. 1-2 in the Laboratory Theatre Down Centre Stage in the Van Ellis Basement. Admission is free.

Bailee Barrett (front), Bethany Soder (middle), Cassidy Davis (back)

Based on real life events, The Drowning Girls is written about the murders of an English serial killer from 1915 named George Joseph Smith. Son of an insurance agent, Smith married his victims and convinced them to name him the sole beneficiary of their life insurance policies before he drowned them in the bathtub.

Rising from the bath tubs they were murdered in, Bessie, Alice, and Margaret gather evidence against their womanizing, murderous husband by reliving the shocking events that lead up to their deaths. The Drowning Girls is an unsettling, poetic, and morbidly funny docudrama.

“The purpose of the Down Centre Stage Laboratory Theatre is to give our students the opportunity to practice and demonstrate the skills that they are learning in class,” said Dr. Victoria Spangler, Associate Professor of Theatre. “The ‘Director’s Cut’ provides a platform for them to do that.  These student-driven productions go beyond the scope and requirements of class work but are not as complex as a fully realized mainstage production.  The focus of this endeavor is on the process, be it directing or design or acting.”

The Drowning Girls is part of the Hardin-Simmons Theatre Department’s annual “Director’s Cut Series.” The show will open on Saturday, Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m. and again on Sunday, Feb. 2 at 2 p.m. To purchase tickets or learn more about the HSU Theatre Department, check the theatre website.