This Friday and Saturday, 13 Washington University women will take to the stage in the Village Black Box to share true stories of young women affected by commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. “A Day in the Life,” directed by Anna Richards (`l5) and produced by Thyrsus Student Theatre, makes its St. Louis debut this weekend and strives to shed light on stories usually hidden or ignored. At the end of the production, playgoers are encouraged to not only reflect on these stories and situations, but to take action themselves.

The play, originally written by Katie Cappiello, is made up of a 13-woman ensemble, all Wash. U. women. It opens with the ensemble all on stage together before breaking into five individual monologues that are from different perspectives of girls that have experienced sexual exploitation, prostitution and trafficking in some way. “A Day in the Life” ends with the entire ensemble together again.

Courtesy of Abby Mros

Throughout the 40-minute play, the actors relay survivors’ experiences through honest and simple storytelling.

“At moments they relive their experiences, which is very moving,” Richards said. “At [other] moments, [they] push through it to the present and how they’ve come out of it and moved on with their lives, proving that they are people who have lives and deserve lives.”

Richards stressed the relatability of the women whose stories are being told.

“They’re just vulnerable or insecure,” Richards said of the teenagers. “The only real variable that links all of these people trafficked is just being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being vulnerable.”

Senior Abby Mros, the production’s stage manager, stressed the role of the theater in a story like this, where survivors’ stories are told through the actresses who portray them, and why she and Richards were so excited and honored to share this play with the Wash. U. and St. Louis communities.

“I think it’s important that there is a physical presence of people telling these stories, and as actors ‘living truthfully in imagined circumstances,’ they are embodying the lives of these women and are telling these stories truthfully and honestly without sensationalizing anything,” Mros said, referencing a common saying in the theater community. “It is the importance of a real person telling their story without victimizing the survivor.”

The play is “simple and straightforward,” inviting playgoers to not only hear these stories, but to hopefully take action. After each show, there will be a panel made up of community experts as well as some of the actresses. Panelists include sex trafficking expert and Wash. U. professor Andrea Nichols; Dedee Lhamon, founder of The Covering House; Lindsey Ellis, executive director; Celeste Smith, Magdalene St. Louis’ program director; and Hope Welles Jernagan, acting executive director. The panel will serve as a place for audience members to ask questions and find out more information about sex trafficking and about how they can make a difference.

“I want them to walk away with the crystal-clear awareness and understanding of these people as people who have hard times and life experiences like anyone else and whose hard times and life experiences should not define the rest of their lives,” Richards said. “We need to be working to change that.”

She and Mros struggled for a little while to find the right words to describe the feeling of the play. Mros wanted to say that there is a hopeful quality to the play, but it is obvious she doesn’t want to let playgoers off easy.

“I hope our show is the beginning of someone’s activism and not the end,” Mros said. “This is an important issue that we want people to do more work in.”

It is obvious that those involved with this production do not want “A Day in the Life” to just be another day in someone’s life, but the opportunity to start doing and making changes.

“We’re not hoping, we’re doing,” Richard said. “It’s active.”

She and Mros laughed at the “actor-y” nature of the word “active,” but it is easy to see how this word applies to the play. At the end of the day, “A Day in The Life” will not just invite you to think, but will make you get up and ask, “So, what next?”

“A Day in The Life” will be in the Village Black Box Theater this Friday at 7 p.m., and Saturday at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets are free, but can be reserved ahead of time here.