CURTAIN CALL: This one's for the ladies

Each week, Michael Gold breezes past those big-name theater companies to turn a spotlight on Philly's indie stages. This week: Temple Theater examines girl power, Nova D Arts Collective sends one across the pond, and beauty queens is the focus of one UArts student's senior directorial project.

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CURTAIN CALL: This one's for the ladies

POSTED: Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 11:00 AM

A message to the parents of aspiring Miss Americas: Pageants are out of control. Break away from the Toddlers & Tiaras marathon (no shame), and take a look at the boundless parade of circus-like kiddie pageants and teenage beauty contests that are apparently meant to foster body image issues in insecure adolescents. As these vanity-inducing contests become more abundant, doesn’t it stand to reason that disastrous egotism will follow?

The image-obsessed realm of pageantry is precisely what sparks the satire of Colorado. After the disappearance of Miss Late Teen Colorado Tracey Ackhart — whose general worldview is best summed up in a coronation speech where she claims changing one tiny life justifies her beauty — her family’s lives spin into dysfunction. As the stress of the pageant queen’s disappearance takes its toll, flashbacks of a self-absorbed teenage monster emerge. For her senior directing project, UArts student Lauren Hope Gates will tackle the downslide of a family trying to pull itself together without one narcissistic member.

April 13-15, $10, Caplan Studio Theater, 211 S. Broad St., uarts.edu.

If you have a theater event you'd like featured in an upcoming Curtain Call, email the author at michael.gold@citypaper.net or tweet him @migold.

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