Little Dancer: A New Musical, an original play written and produced by local daughter-father duo Olivia and Chris Colvin, is set for its stage debut. Inspired by the life of Marie van Goethem, the young ballerina who modeled for Edgar Degas’ famous sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1878–81), the performance imagines how van Goethem’s years beyond the spotlight may have played out—in the absence of a clear historical record.
The ambitious effort began when Olivia Colvin needed a homeschooling project to pursue while traveling with family. She had discovered a love of theater in her freshman year at Charlottesville High School, and the story of van Goethem intrigued the Colvins for multiple reasons—including Olivia’s own background as a ballet dancer, and the narrative flexibility provided by a concrete setting without known specifics of the subject’s full life.
“We wrote the bulk of the script during my sophomore year of high school in a little bubble of travel where we could spend eight hours a day on the script if we wanted to,” Olivia says. Chris explains that Olivia took the lead on script development, and that both Colvins worked closely on the underlying story and initial revisions.
Olivia, now in her senior year at CHS, and her father have engaged a spirited assembly of community members and CHS students to see the project to full fruition. While Little Dancer is a fully volunteer production that is not an official school program, CHS theatre department director David Becker has been a resource, supporter, and collaborator. The Colvins also worked with Live Arts’ Interim Producing Artistic Director Miller Susen, among others in the local performing arts community, to help develop aspects of the play. Earlier this school year, the Colvins recruited some of Olivia’s friends who are also active in CHS’s theatre program, and formed the Little Dancer Development Group to help finalize the book and score, present staged readings, and ultimately perform the show live.
“The biggest support has come from all of the students who have volunteered to make costumes, props and photos, design projections, play in the band, run lighting and sound, come to readings, workshops, and rehearsals, perform in productions, take photos, etc.,” Chris says. “It is a really remarkable testament to the desire kids—really, all of us—have to be part of something in person and creative and meaningful and the need to feel useful and make a contribution.”
While this is not the first time van Goethem’s story has been adapted to the stage—a musical theater spectacle of the same title directed and choreographed by Tony Award-winner Susan Stroman premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 2014—it is likely the first time the scant source material has been elaborated on by artists who are roughly the same age as the subject they’re exploring. “I think the story speaks broadly to people, but to high school audiences in particular,” Chris says.
Little Dancer: A New Musical represents a unique undertaking where young creatives have a chance to imagine how being in proximity to art might impact a life, how being a performer brings its own set of challenges and possibilities. As Olivia notes, “The performing arts [are] all about human emotions, stories, and experiences, and when we start to ignore those innately human things, we start to lose sight of each other’s humanity.”
Charlottesville High School Black Box Theatre
Thursday 5/14–Sunday 5/17
