As a director, I . . .
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cultivate a rehearsal room that prioritizes play and exploration
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​uplift each unique voice that contributes to a production​
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am an ambitious, big picture thinker
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incorporate movement and devising into my staging
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can always accurately predict when there is 5 minutes left until break
"It is such a joy to be directed by Becca. She puts so much care into her work, knows how to make the most of every minute of rehearsal time, and she creates a deeply supportive rehearsal environment for her actors to play in. I can't wait to work with her again!"
-Joan Raube-Wilson, Actor (Anima)
Recent Projects:
Anima (Her Soul)
by Amelia P. Rosselli
Translated by Natalia Costa-Zalessow
Directed by Becca Westbrook
Mary Baldwin Shakespeare & Performance
Cast
Olga De Velaris - Joan Raube-Wilson
Silvio Vettori - Grayson Whitaker Fulp
Giorgio Mauri - Dennis Colin Graham
Graziana Mauri, Marquis Bei - Megan Parlett
Teresa Mauri, Count Lorenzi - Elle Lewis-Eme
Marietta, Salvelli, Ferrandi - Maggie Lengerich
February 2025
Production Team
Assistant Director - Analise Toone
Stage Manager - Tommy Hegarty
Assistant Stage Manager - Xueyun Zhang
Set Designer - Brooke Crittenden
Music Director - Joan Raube-Wilson
Music Assistant - Megan Parlett
Costume Designer - Hailey Pearce
Costume Assistant - Maggie Lengerich
Dramaturg - Megan Parlett
Intimacy Director - D. Scarlet Darling
Publicity/Marketing - Maggie Lengerich
Olga De Velaris painting Marietta. Photo by Ariel Tatum
Director's Note
It is scary to be a feminine-presenting person in America in 2025.
Locker-room conversations are happening in the open air. Reproductive rights are being campaigned against. The cultural insurgence of the “trad-wife” trend is pushing the narrative that idealizes the return to traditional values in the household. There is an ever-present insistence on talking about, controlling, and molding people perceived as women into a patriarchal ideal. Bodies are political, and deviation from the patriarchal norm is perceived as a cultural attack. However, women and feminine-presenting people’s bodies haven’t suddenly become political; they’ve always been that way.
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Anima features a story that is deeply ingrained in the politics of a woman’s body, diving into conversations about virginity, purity, and the soul. First performed in Italy in 1898, the conversations and opinions these characters have about a woman’s place in the world are strikingly similar to today. We hear the way these male characters speak about women when they are behind closed doors. We see how these characters put a price tag on the worth of a woman based on her purity. Most importantly, we listen to the women of the play speak out about the shame the traditional values of their society have imposed on them.
I invite you to listen to the stories of the women in this play, to consider the parallels between then and now, and to remember:
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No one can take your soul.
-Becca Westbrook
Photos by Ariel Tatum
Review:
"Just as the Academy froths at the mouth whenever anyone makes a movie about movies, I have been so excited to review Becca Westbrook’s production of Amelia P. Rosselli’s Anima, or Her Soul, because, at its core, it is a play about reviewing and judgment, of art, yes, but also of character. . .Westbrook’s direction focused on something I admittedly am a novice in: devising. Olga’s paintings were more than just what fueled her soul, they were also the main vocabulary for the staging. Characters stood behind empty picture frames, posing as if for a portrait, and would only move when their character was set to enter."
As You Like It
by William Shakespeare
Adapted & Directed by Becca Westbrook and Megan Parlett
Mary Baldwin Shakespeare & Performance
Production Team
Set Design - Brooke Crittenden
Fights & Props - Gray Casterline
Music Director - Joan Raube-Wilson
Pub/Mark - M. Finch
Intimacy - Matthias Bolon
Hair, Makeup, Movement - Aubree J. Gray
Costume Design - D. Scarlet Darling
Stage Manager - Hailey Pearce
Dramaturg - Tommy Hegarty
Cast
Adam - Gray Casterline
Orlando - Grayson Whitaker Fulp
Oliver, Jaques - Joan Raube-Wilson
Charles, Silvius - Jake Raiter
Rosalind - D. Scarlet Darling
Celia - Brooke Crittenden
Touchstone - Louis Altman
Amiens, Corin, etc. - Aubree J. Gray
Duke Senior, etc. - Dennis Colin Graham
Lord, Phoebe - Emily Bassett
May 2024
Photos by Ethan Goodmansen
Director's Note: As [we] like it
We often see The Forest of Arden depicted as a transitional space before our characters return to the ‘proper’ behavior of the court, a textbook depiction of ‘the green world’. In our version of The Forest of Arden, we embrace a space that steers away from the liminal and into the concrete. Our aim is to present a place that is lasting, that you don't have to return from.
So what is “The Forest of Arden” without the forest-y aspects? We are notably bereft of trees, goats, and shepherds in this production. Instead of being a space of exile, Duke Senior has created The Forest of Arden as a refuge from the world that has shunned him. Thus, the bar “The Forest of Arden” was born. In this framing, we shift away from the temporality of the forest into a queer space of acceptance. You no longer have to escape reality to find a place of belonging; there are actual places you can go to that are just as real as the repressive ones.
As you enjoy this story with us, we ask that you consider the value of creating spaces of discovery and acceptance that you don’t have to return from.
Enjoy the show, Foresters!
Becca and Megan
Review:
"The Forest of Arden is many things to many people: a place of work, a place to waste one’s time, a place of fear. But for Megan Parlett and Becca Westbrook’s production starring the MBU Shakespeare & Performance first years, it was more than anything else a place of refuge and community. By reimagining the sprawling pastoral Forest of Shakespeare as a queer-friendly bar in 90s America, the production reversed the usual movement from court to country and instead found liberation in the confined walls of a single small sanctuary from the outside world, whose inhabitants rubbed shoulders closely with one another and were able to, as the song told us, express themselves."