State High Thespians to perform alumna’s work

The State High Thespians are premiering tonight a musical written by own of their own, alumna Masi Asare.

\”Sympathy Jones,\” which first premiered at the New York Musical Theatre Festival two years ago, will be performed by a high school for the first time tonight.

The play follows a receptionist at a New York intelligence agency in the 1960s who, when a top secret file is left accidentally on the desk, has to become a spy and save the world.

Thespians Director Jill Campbell arranged for “Sympathy Jones” to be performed at State High after she took some middle school and high school students to see it in New York.

“The students loved it, thought it was really fun,” she said. “I had those very proud moments that a teacher has when they realize their students have done something that’s just really exceptional and wonderful,” said Campbell, who once taught Asare.

Asare, who co-wrote the musical along with friend Brooke Pierce, currently lives in New York City and came back to State College to see some of the rehearsals for the show.

“It’s really exciting. It’s really fun to be back at the high school. It brought back a lot of memories,” she said.

Asare is a composer, lyricist, music teacher, and a singer as well. She graduated from Harvard University and pursued her Master’s Degree in performance studies at New York University.

The inspiration for “Sympathy Jones” came to Asare when she was working as a secretary at NYU, which wasn’t particularly interesting to her.

“I had a lot of friends who were artists and a lot of us were working jobs that we weren’t that excited about,” she said. “We had these dreams of what would happen when we finally made it or did something more glamorous. So that was kind of a little bit of a parallel between my life and the life of Sympathy Jones.”

Asare really likes old movies and spy shows from the \’60s, such as the James Bond movies, \”The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,\” \”The Avengers,\” and \”Get Smart,\” and she incorporated elements from them into the theme and music of “Sympathy Jones.”

“Sympathy Jones” will be performed today and tomorrow at 8 p.m., as well as 2 p.m. on Nov. 22 at State College High School. Tickets are $7 for students and $9 for non-students.