Rowan Hawk McDonald is about to take on the coveted lead role in Aristophanes’ classic, Lysistrata. Rowan describes her a mixture of Beyonce and Eartha Kitt. “She is very confident,” she said. “She will tell you what is on her mind, and you will listen.”
Rowan sees her character as a self-made woman in a very patriarchal society. “She is the daughter of a politician. She is pretty smart. She listened to her father and other men talk about a number of different things. She taught herself how to be a feminist based on those conversations.”
A war serves as the backdrop of Lysistrata’s story. She wants to end the war, but realizes she can’t do it by herself. She convinces her female friends to withhold sex from the men until the war is over. “It’s very exciting for me to play a part like this,” said Rowan.
Despite being a classic piece of theater, this production takes on a very contemporary slant. “Lysistrata embraces her femininity not just for women, but for gay men as well,” she said. “We can be women or LBGT and anything that isn’t male and still be respected.”
When Rowan was a child, she and her sister would write their own plays, act them out and record them. Sometimes they would make silent films using the demo music on a keyboard as background music. They both became members of the New Britain High School Drama Club. She took on numerous roles in productions of Harvey, Richard III, Godspell, Rocky Horror Show, Fiddler on the Roof and The Addams Family. The title role in Lysistrata is her largest role to date.
Come see Rowan when Lysistrata opens on Friday, November 13th. Performances run Fridays & Saturdays from November 13 through December 5 at 8:00pm with one Sunday matinee on November 22 at 2:00pm. Tickets are $20.00 (general admission) and $15.00 (students and seniors). They can be purchased at the door and online at www.hitw.org The November 27th performance will be our Pay-What-You-Can performance where you name the price of your ticket. Lysistrata is funded in part with the support of the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation.