||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||

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The title of Eisa Davis’ ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| tells it all: four gifted teenagers attend a prestigious girls’ music program in Berkeley, California, apparently for underprivileged students. Some have attended previously; some are new to the program. All are devoted to music: Fax for singing, Margot on the drums and percussion, Rile on the piano, and Clementine on the oboe and baritone sax. The play covered their studies and their interactions: some become friends, some enemies, and some would like to become lovers. Chance plays a role in their lives and choices.

The set by Nina Ball like the play gives few pointers. The stage has four music booths but the events take place at the music school as well as in and around Berkeley and Oakland where the girls live. The locations are often not named or not until the scene is almost over. So too the details of the girls’ lives: there is much we do not know until almost the very end. Fax lives with a large supportive family. Margot left her mother earlier in the year and has been living with her separated father. However, at some point she moves out and becomes homeless. Rile is most into drugs and alcohol which gives the play one of its two dramatic scenes (her rampage in a restaurant the girls frequent), the second one being an earthquake that ends their studies in the school building and injures Margot’s hands badly.

Fax and Margot’s relationship drives the story. They meet in the first scene on the roof of the school where Margot has gone under stress to possibly end it all. Although we never know what prompted Fax to join her on the roof, she is able to talk her down and they become close friends. Unfortunately, Margot the most gifted of the four students is very reticent and we learn little about her though it is obvious she has little spending money for meals. Fax appears to be the most dedicated always practicing and studying but she is not able to deal with improvisation or riffs not on the page. Rile is the most volatile, while Clementine who we learn the least about is the most placid and seems the most likely to be able to deal with a professional career in music. In the final scene, we jump years into the future, and find out what happens to all four students now deep into their careers and private lives.

Musically every performance is different: before the curtain, 12 audience members are invited to a whiteboard in the lobby to select a note from G to the F# above. They will number the notes from 1 to 12 on one of the unselected black or white keys on the board creating a tone row. The whiteboard will be placed on the onstage piano and stickers will be placed on the piano keys to correspond with the audience choice of tone row melody. At different moments in the play, the performers will sing or play this unique tone row where indicated in the script. In addition, the music student will play or sing music from Bobby Capó, Rossini, Debussy, Pergolesi, Chopin and Cole Porter.

As directed by Pam McKinnon, the cast is very believable as teenage music students even though we never learn much about them. While Naomi Latta’s Margot is the most envied of all she is the most reticent, speaking very little and then almost always about music. At times she seems a brooding presence, at others very ironic towards the others. As Fax, Hillary Fisher is charismatic drawing people to her as she ambitiously studies to become a singer. Yeena Sung’s Rile is volatile and unpredictable. Gianna DiGregorio Rivera’s Clementine is so quiet it isn’t until almost the end of the summer that Fax finds out her name is not Rachel. Mel Ng has created an entire casual wardrobe for the teens to suggest that many weeks have passed. The lighting by Russell H. Champa is helpful in establishing time is passing as well as the different locations.

||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| is an interesting portrait of music students studying to build a career. However, it would be useful if author Eisa Davis (who dedicates the play to her own music teachers) gave us a little more information about them and had her quartet discuss their fears, desires and ambitions a bit more. The play is fine as far as it goes but it feels like some of the storyline and character development is missing. We will another chance soon again to experience one of Davis’ plays when Signature Theatre revives her Angela’s Mixtape next season. And Warriors, her musical collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda should eventually reach the New York stage. Incidentally, :|| is the symbol in music for repeat.

||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| (through June 21, 2026)

Vineyard Theatre

Co-production with American Conservatory Theater

Vineyard Theatre, 108 E. 15^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.boxoffice.vineyardtheatre.org

Running time: two hours without an intermission