In Reasons to Be Pretty<\/em>, Greg\u2019s tight-knit social circle is thrown into turmoil when his off-the-cuff comment about a female coworker\u2019s pretty face and his own girlfriend\u2019s lack thereof get back to her. Greg\u2019s best friend, Kent, and Kent\u2019s wife, Carly, enter the story and the four friends must all face the question: How much is pretty worth?<\/p>\n Reasons to Be Pretty<\/em>, written by Neil LaBute, was his first play to reach Broadway in 2009 and earned a Tony nomination for Best Play. Theatre Arts Department Professor and Chair Jay Oney directs Furman\u2019s production of the play, a show that has special meaning for him.<\/p>\n Friends have to face the question, “How much is pretty worth?”<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cI first saw LaBute\u2019s work in 1996 when my National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) seminar group attended his three short Off Broadway works, Bash: Latter Day Plays<\/em>, featuring Paul Rudd and Calista Flockhart. The performance was very powerful,\u201d recalls Oney.<\/p>\n Oney was one of the members of that seminar to contribute an article to Neil LaBute: A Casebook<\/em> (ed. Gerald C. Wood) in 2006.<\/p>\n \u201cLaBute, who taught college himself early in his career, was fascinated by the playwrights of the English Restoration (1660-1685), and updated those earlier writers\u2019 techniques to require his audiences to reexamine their own morals based on the play they had just seen,\u201d said Oney. \u201cReasons to Be Pretty<\/em>, for all its humor and Midwestern slang, presents characters who have trouble being good people and asks us if we are really better than those characters.\u201d<\/p>\n As students worked to bring those characters to life, they too struggled with some of their characters\u2019 idiosyncrasies.<\/p>\n \u201cSteph, my character, is really difficult to portray because she is a high energy character who has a whole\u00a0lot to say. I’ve really enjoyed trying to find Steph’s state of emotional being, but it has also\u00a0been one of my most challenging obstacles,\u201d says Theatre Arts major Eliza Kate Leiter \u201920 of Marietta, Ga. \u201cSteph is a character who says what she thinks and doesn’t stop to wonder if she should or not, which is very different from myself.\u201d<\/p>\n While it offers plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, the play also explores serious issues, especially for college-age students.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the title hints, the play takes on the issue of image in relationships, in society and how we react to images. In the past few years, discussions about image have certainly gained momentum, especially with body image,\u201d said Dorn \u201918, a theatre arts major from Spartanburg. \u201cI hope people walk away thinking about image and how it affects our everyday relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n Oney describes the play as \u201ccompact, explosive, very honest and a great opportunity for young actors to show their range.\u201d<\/p>\n Courtney Dorn \u201918 as Carly<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cOur cast, by chance, contains one freshman, one sophomore, one junior and one senior. It\u2019s a pleasure watching them blend together and learn from each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Cast members include Derek Leonard \u201819 as Greg, Eliza Kate Leiter \u201820 as Steph, Mike Caterisano \u201921 as Kent and Courtney Dorn \u201918 as Carly.<\/p>\n The crew includes: Tess Kamody \u201819, stage manager; Alyssa Ciurlik \u201918 and Claire Shea \u201820, assistant stage manager; Matt Middleton \u201819, Clark Spillane \u201818, Andy Golla \u201820, Chris Sessoms \u201818, scene shifters; Anne Morgan \u201819, makeup design; Connor Courtney \u201818, prop design; Clark Spillane \u201818, prop crew head; Chelsea Helton \u201819 and Chloe Rawlings \u201821, prop crew; Rachel Gifford \u201918 and Lee McCaskill \u201820, box office; Cammi Stilwell \u201820, Elizabeth Budinoff \u201918 and Caroline Schrum \u201821, wardrobe; Drake Shadwell \u201818, costume design; Alan Smith \u201820, light board operator; Beth Fraser \u201820, house manager; Patrick Fretwell \u201919 and Karsen Green \u201819, publicity; Chris Sessoms \u201818, master electrician; Dayanari Umana \u201818, Jamie Riedy \u201821, Andy Teye \u201919 and Charlotte Lucas \u201821, Clare Beth McConnell \u201921 and Elizabeth Budinoff \u201818, lighting crew; Elli Caterisano \u201818, sound design; and Katie Fleet \u201818, sound board operator.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2022\/08\/20170925_Theatre_ReasonsToBePretty-111.jpg\")
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