Stories of teen-parent struggles focus of ‘Wilderness’ at Penn State

UNIVERSITY PARK — En Garde Arts returns to Penn State with the documentary-style theater production “Wilderness,” which reveals the communication breakdowns of six families due to addiction and mental health issues, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 15, in Eisenhower Auditorium.

The tales of broken and healing family bonds are revealed in on-screen interviews, a folk-music score and actor dramatizations. The Village Voice described the production as “a compassionate glimpse at the outer edge of teenage angst.”

The production is a collaboration among playwright-director Seth Bockley (“Basetrack Live”), En Garde Arts founder and show executive producer-writer Anne Hamburger, and movement directors Devon de Mayo and Patrick McCollum. Kyle Henderson (of the band Desert Noises), Kyle Miller (of the band Tow’rs) and indie-folk singer-songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov wrote the show’s music.

“Wilderness” grew out of Hamburger’s personal experience with her son’s issues. While the show arises out of teens sent to wilderness therapy, “The production is actually about relationships between parents and their teenage children and what happens when you have a child that kind of spirals off the rails due to any number of mental health issues and struggles,” she said in an interview with the Center for the Performing Arts. “It’s really about the quest for connection within families and, when troubles arise, how one looks at oneself differently and how one needs to change in order to heal and make connection possible.”

The Center for the Performing Arts presented En Garde Arts’ production of “Basetrack Live”—a piece about the effect of war on Marines and their families—in 2014.

“Wilderness” includes adult language.

Tickets for the presentation — $32 for an adult, $15 for a University Park student, and $22 for a person 18 and younger — are available online at www.cpa.psu.edu or by phone at 814-863-0255 or 800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at four State College locations: Eisenhower Auditorium (weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Penn State Downtown Theatre Center (weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.), HUB-Robeson Center Information Desk (weekdays 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Bryce Jordan Center (weekdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.).