This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
Seeds of the new musical “Dandelion,” inspired by the life of Atlanta-based co-creator Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga, were planted during her high school years, when an inspirational theater teacher, Jessica Fichter, provided her with support and even a place to stay during a tough time with her family.
“It started as a joke that we should write a musical about it, but we did it,” Zuniga said. “So it’s been really cool to collaborate with my former teacher, who has become like my family through this process since 2017.”
Credit: Photo courtesy of Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga
Credit: Photo courtesy of Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga
“Dandelion” tells the story of a girl named Jane and her mother, Delilah. As Delilah begins to show signs of mental illness and struggles with a health care system that offers little by way of support for such conditions, Jane questions whether she should stay with her family or begin to forge her own path as a journalist.
“The story is based upon personal experience with my family and my mom, growing up in a house where — especially in the South — women are automatically expected to be caretakers,” Zuniga said in a recent interview. “It centers around the journey of a senior in high school — over whether she will stay home and take care of a family member who’s struggling mentally or move away, go to college, start her own life and follow her own dreams. There’s a sacrifice in a family unit that everyone has to make when coming to a decision like that. It’s also about growing up, realizing codependency with family and surviving childhood trauma.”
Zuniga now serves as the concierge and ambassador for the Woodruff Arts Center, where she provides assistance to the Alliance Theatre, High Museum of Art and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
“Dandelion” had multiple staged readings, including a concert version performed at 54 Below in New York, and was selected for the 2020 New York Musical Festival before the pandemic shutdown. The musical now has a workshop production running at Trustus Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina, through Aug. 24.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga
Credit: Photo courtesy of Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga
The five collaborators who brought it to life through multiple drafts since 2017 — Zuniga, Fichter, composer and lyricist Colleen Francis, Sean Riehm and Bill Zeffiro — are excited that audiences are finally getting the opportunity to embrace the original musical, and they hope it will be the first of many stagings across the country.
“The story is so universal,” Zuniga said. “The core issue that we’re trying to bring into focus in the show is mental illness and the lack of support for those people who desperately need help. There is not a system in place. There’s a line in the show that says the system is meant to fix an episode, not a family or a condition. It’s putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds.”
Within the script, Delilah’s mental illness is represented by a Greek chorus of three actors, one each for her depression, rage and paranoia. As her condition worsens, Zuniga said that Jane begins to put pressure upon herself to sacrifice for her family.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga
Credit: Photo courtesy of Hailee Beltzhoover Zuniga
“The conflict comes from the brother character, Jordan, and the father character, Daniel,” she said. “Both of them are encouraging Jane to go, letting her know that she cannot fix her mom. Jane is the only one home at this point in time, and she’s living in fear that her mom will be abandoned altogether if she leaves.”
In a way, “Dandelion” subverts the storytelling trope of having villainous systems and sexist traditions oppress an ambitious woman.
“It is a modern-day version with the internalized misogyny and the notion that women just do this — that it’s expected,” Zuniga said. “Jane puts this expectation on herself … that thought is just in her brain, that it’s wrong of her to consider herself first. But the theme of the show is that you deserve the life that you want to build for yourself; you deserve to follow your dream; and you deserve to put yourself first no matter what your circumstance is.”
Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, “Impacted,” was published by The Story Plant.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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