SHOWSTOPPER

Seventeen-year-old Ofelia “Faye” Abernathy has always played it safe at the Ghostlight Youth Theater Camp.

Faye, whose dad is Black Puerto Rican and mom is white, has ended up typecast in roles such as Cinderella and Glinda the Good Witch. But now that she’s attending camp for the final time before aging out of the program, she wants to make a change. She stops bleaching and straightening her hair into “nice-girl dullness,” instead embracing her Afro-Latina heritage and feeling like a more authentic version of herself. Faye dreams of being cast in the role of Veronica in the camp’s musical production of Riverdale and going out with a bang. However, she finds herself at odds with bestie Kai Tufo over the role, intrigued by a charming new camper, and publicly accused of murdering another one—and she realizes that this summer at Ghostlight will be memorable but not necessarily in the way she hoped. Anderson’s refreshingly diverse cast of characters includes kids of various cultural, racial, and LGBTQ+ identities, who are socially stratified as leads vs. ensemble members. Faye wrestles with self-doubt over her ability to break free from the mold she feels trapped in, and she struggles to balance loyalty to her friends with being true to herself. In this love letter to theater life, the joy and passion derived from the art form shine through brightly.

A witty summer camp murder mystery where drama unfolds both on and off the stage.