Meg is a junior in the College and the Director for FTC’s upcoming production of “Rabbit Hole”!
FTC: What is the best thing directing Rabbit Hole has taught you?
MM: I think the show itself has taught me that we all grieve differently and there’s no right way to deal with the difficult parts of life. And that even though we all experience grieving at some point in our lives, it’s still an extremely hard thing to have a conversation about.
FTC: What is your funniest TAC-e memory?
MM: It’s difficult to think of something appropriate for public audience…I think the funniest memories are usually when something goes horribly wrong. (It’s not funny in the moment, but later it’s hilarious.) We did a show during my sophomore year where everything went wrong. And it got to the point where every new bad thing just became ridiculous. The show was in like 7 different languages, and the only person in the cast who was fluent in German dropped out two weeks before because he came down with Stage 3 Lyme disease. Then another actress broke both her feet a week before and dropped out. Then at the beginning of tech week, Iron Gate Theatre flooded. Not a little flood either, there was literally a wave in the basement. Then I passed out during a line through. Then the lights didn’t go out after the first act. Add to that the impossibility of people learning new languages in a period of several weeks…and in the end, we still actually had a show. I’m not sure it was super funny as it happened, but looking back at it now, it’s just so absurd.
FTC: If you had to pick celebrities and/or super heroes to be your parents who would you pick and why?
MM: I really have no idea. I’ll go with President and Mrs. Bartlett from the West Wing, because they might as well be super heroes. And they’re from New Hampshire too!
FTC: How many FTC shows have you worked on?
MM: Rabbit Hole is my fourth FTC show! I previously performed in Zanna, Don’t! and The Children’s Hour, and I directed the staged reading of Somewhere in the Ether last spring.
FTC: What is always at the bottom of your purse?
MM: Probably various lip glosses, and lots of crumpled tickets from various TAC-e/PAC/Philly shows.
FTC: What do you hope the Penn community takes away from watching Rabbit Hole?
MM: I hope that Rabbit Hole helps people think about and start conversations about grieving and mental health, especially with everything that happened earlier this semester on campus. What I love about Rabbit Hole is that it deals with grief in a very real way. The family doesn’t walk around hysterically crying all the time; they are real, unsentimental people and some days are good and some days are hard, but they keep going the best they can. Sometimes they are able to deal with what is going on in their lives and sometimes they aren’t. I hope that Rabbit Hole reminds people that grief is a universal experience, and that we’re all doing the best we can, and sometimes everyone needs a little help.
Come see Meg and the rest of Front Row in “Rabbit Hole” this April 17th, 18th, and 19th!
Front Row Theatre Co. 