During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Oversteegen sisters joined the Dutch Resistance at 17 and 15 years old. Truus and Freddie Oversteegen were entrusted with increasingly high-risk missions as the girls grew to become spies, saboteurs, and assassins. Soon thereafter, another young woman, Hannie Schaft, joined the resistance and the three become fast friends, and a formidable team against their enemies. The story of their staggering bravery against impossible odds inspires all who hear it.
Taffety Punk company member and playwright Kelsey Mesa, who penned 2023’s award winning La Salpêtrière, takes on the story of these brave girls by focusing on the youngest: Freddie Oversteegen. In the play we follow Freddie’s journey from wide-eyed novice to experienced saboteur and assassin — a journey so harrowing no teenager should be burdened with it. But her country had been invaded by bloodthirsty criminals. She and her sister were eager to make a difference in the war.
Tia Shearer Bassett, who plays young Freddie, extols the play as “an artful mix of war story, spy adventure, and coming-of-age.” The girls were trained to spy on potential targets. They were given costumes and false identities. One of the sisters might help usher refugees to new locations while the other set bombs along a militarily strategic train track. Free of suspicion — as men routinely underestimate girls — they would ride their bicycles around Nazi agents and strongholds while gathering critical information. It was astride these bicycles that the girls would identify an enemy, shoot, and ride away. Mesa says that after first hearing about the Oversteegen sisters, she was “struck simultaneously by the capacity for courage that these young women had and the horror of needing to ask this of them.”
There were many triumphs for the sisters, but just as many tragedies. The play does not shy away from the consequences of war. The war robbed these girls of an innocent youth. The war twisted their personal relationships into webs of misgiving. The war stole from them loved ones and dear friends, most famously Hannie Schaft who was executed in a Nazi prison just two weeks before the war ended. The war haunted the sisters for the rest of their lives. And this is where Mesa’s play takes an unexpected turn, bringing us into the home of an older, more mature Freddie who has lived her life in the wake of World War II. She was the youngest of combatants and survives as best she can beset by heartbreaking memories and grief. She says every person she killed is still with her.
Mesa explains where her research led her, saying, “I was also moved by how this experience affected Truus but especially Freddie for the remainder of her life. Courage is not without cost. How do we go into a situation needing to fight and knowing there will be consequences, but doing it anyway?”
Company member Tonya Beckman, who plays the older Freddie, propounds further: “One of the things that makes this piece so unique and beautiful is that it grapples with the price of bravery. Heroism does not come without a cost, especially to the heroes. But the play also celebrates their resiliency, and I really love that.” Beckman adds, “I’ve gone into work on this piece often thinking of the last line from Taffety Punk’s production of Beowulf, a Retelling: ‘monsters are real, and they can be beaten.’ And that’s very true. But the next question, at least for me is, ‘But who will heal the hero?’”
Kelsey Mesa says, “The questions I find myself returning to again and again when I think of the Oversteegen sisters are: how did we get to a place where we needed to ask them to do these things? And how can I cultivate that courage in myself, so we never need to ask that of young people again?”
Guest artist Hana Clarice plays Hannie Schaft, and Taffety Punk newcomer Sadie O’Conor plays older sister Truus Oversteegen. Company member Dan Crane plays a rotating set of characters, Frans Van der Wiel — the leader of the Dutch resistance — among them.
Taffety Punk Theatre Company as always is committed to making the best possible theatre for the best possible price. Tickets for this show will not exceed $20. Seats are general admission
Freddie: A Girl, presented by Taffety Punk Theatre Company, runs August 27-September 19, 2026 at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop at 8:00pm. The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop is located at 545 7th Street SE, Washington, DC 20003 – two blocks from Metro’s Orange/Blue/Silver Line stop at Eastern Market. All evening performances (Aug 27, 28, 29, Sep 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18 19) are at 8:00pm. There is a Saturday matinee at 2:30pm on September 12. The evenings of August 27 and 28 are half-price previews; customers can use the code “preview” to activate the discount for those two shows. There is an “industry night” performance on the evening of Monday, September 14. All seats are general admission throughout the run, and tickets ($20) may be purchased online.
This show is estimated to run 90 minutes in length with no intermission.
Freddie: A Girl is directed by founding company member Lise Bruneau, and stars company members Tonya Beckman and Dan Crane, with guest artists Hana Clarice, Sadie O’Conor, and Tia Shearer Bassett. Set Design by Jessica Moretti. Light design by Katie McCreary. Costume design by Elizabeth Morton. Sound design by Lee Martinez Cruz. Fight choreography by Lorraine Ressegger-Slone.
Lise Bruneau (director) is a highly esteemed actor and director and a co-founder of Taffety Punk Theatre Company, where she was recently nominated for a Helen Hayes award for her portrayal of Macbeth in the Riot Grrrls: The Tragedie of Macbeth, directed by Michelle Shupe. Before that she appeared with fellow company member Tonya Beckman as a narrator of Venus and Adonis. She played Iago in the Riot Grrrls: Othello (directed by Kelsey Mesa), and has directed many of the Riot Grrrls, Bootleg Shakespeare, and TPunk shows: notably Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Oxygen, Bloody Poetry, Pericles, King John, and Owl Moon. DC area appearances include her Helen Hayes winning performance in Solas Nua’s The Honey Trap. Other area credits include Arena Stage: Junk, Watch on the Rhine, The Heiress, Legacy of Light; Shakespeare Theatre Co: Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, Othello; Mosaic Theater Co: Eureka Day, Paper Dolls; Theatre J: Breaking Glass, Mikveh; Round House Theatre: This, The Book Club Play; and Center Stage: Mary Stuart, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Blithe Spirit. Outside of DC, Lise has performed in New York on Broadway in Roundabout Theatre’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by Simon Godwin; and at the Park Avenue Armory in Hamlet, and The Oresteia, directed by Robert Icke; and at American Regional Theatres such as ACT San Francisco in Sweat, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Angels in America; Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in The Revolutionists; Denver Center Theatre Co in Heartbreak House (Henry Award); Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in Merry Wives of Windsor; and Alabama Shakespeare Festival as Margaret of Anjou in Wars of the Roses. As a freelance director, she has helmed the recent Oresteia, and Measure for Measure for Chesapeake Shakespeare Company; 4000 Miles for Clarence Brown Theatre; Hamlet (starring Marcus Kyd) for Nebraska Shakespeare; and Savage in Limbo for MetroStage, among others. Ms. Bruneau trained at RADA.
Taffety Punk Theatre Company is the resident company at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. Founded to establish an actively collaborative company of actors, dancers, and musicians, the company is known for its innovative, groundbreaking productions. The company has introduced new playwrights and stories to the stage alongside new works of choreography and new compositions of original music. They also have a rich history of producing classical plays with clarity and power. Through its artist-nurturing Generator program Taffety Punk has brought many of the unique dreams of company members to fruition. Generator projects that have realized full production include the widely celebrated dance plays suicide.chat.room, Fragments of Sappho, and Enter Ophelia, distracted; as well as the world premieres of Liz Maestri’s Inheritance Canyon, and Kelsey Mesa’s La Salpêtrière (nominated for five Helen Hayes Awards in 2024 including Outstanding New Play, and winner of two of those nominations: Outstanding Production, and Outstanding Supporting Actor – company member Kimberly Gilbert). The Taffety Punk Generator’s newest offering to the world is this world premiere of Kelsey Mesa’s Freddie: A Girl. Over the years, Taffety Punk has garnered numerous accolades and recognition for its work and, in fact, won the very first John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company from the Helen Hayes Awards. The Washington Post declared the company “The most vital of the city’s small troupes.” The company’s all-female ensemble, the Riot Grrrls, have repeatedly delighted audiences delivering impassioned productions of classical plays while empowering women in theatre. The recent Riot Grrrls production of The Tragedie of Macbeth garnered two Helen Hayes Award nominations: Lise Bruneau for Lead Performer, and Marcus Kyd for Sound Design. This year Taffety Punk’s production of artistic director Marcus Kyd’s Beowulf, a Retelling was nominated for best new play or adaptation at the Helen Hayes Awards. Also this year, a photo of the Riot Grrrls’ production of Titus Andronicus is forever memorialized in the Arden Shakespeare’s 4th edition of the play. The Bootleg Shakespeare is a widely celebrated event the company hosts with the partnership of the Folger Theatre providing the most exciting night of theatre anyone could ask for: an entire Shakespeare play rehearsed and performed in a single day. As Taffety Punk Theatre Company moves forward, it remains committed to its mission to ignite a public passion for theatre by making the classical and the contemporary exciting, meaningful, and affordable. The company is excited to continue its legacy of excellence and making the greatest theater for the lowest price.
