Eavesdropping on audience chatter after a show can be the most interesting part of a theater trip. This is particularly true on a college campus where classroom discussions have happily primed the audience for thematic analysis. Walking out of the Davis Performing Arts Center at Georgetown University, I overheard two young women asking each other a question provoked by the show we’d just seen: would you read your dead sister’s diary?
In She Kills Monsters, playwright Qui Nguyen answers that question with a resounding yes — and it will be a great time if you do! As the curtain rises, a droll narrator introduces the protagonist Agnes and the small Ohio suburb she lives in. Agnes is, in today’s parlance, a normie. The narrator informs us, dispassionately, that Agnes’ entire family has died in a car crash, including her younger sister Tilly, who was anything but normal.
The action starts a couple of years later. Agnes, played by Catherine Hughes, is adrift in her hometown, teaching at the high school her sister would’ve graduated from that year, 1995. While organizing boxes, she finds Tilly’s journal. Agnes doesn’t ask whether she should read it; she just dives right in. Within, she finds a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Being a normie uninitiated in fantasy role-playing games, she has to seek out a nerd to help her decipher what it all means. Thus Agnes meets Dungeon Master Chuck, played by Alexandros “X” Georgussis, who helps her dive into her sister’s imaginative world.
Dungeons & Dragons is one of those things that means a whole lot to people who are into it and nothing at all to people who are not into it — kind of like theater. The two are a match made in heaven. But one does not have to be familiar with the workings of Dungeons & Dragons to follow the show. Since the protagonist is herself a newbie, everything important is explained along the way. Suffice it to say, it’s a narrative-based adventure game, and it’s fun, but not nearly as fun as the show makes it seem.
As Agnes learns the rules of the game and learns how to use her imagination, she gets deeper into the world her sister created, and the line between the game and real life begins to blur. The characters in Tilly’s campaign begin to appear during the day at the school. This gives Agnes a window into her sister’s daily experiences and what she thought about them.
Together, Tilly (played by Madilyn Dougherty) and Agnes have to fight off cheerleader monsters who attack with evil giggles, defeat “The Beholder” (the guidance counselor), and even battle Agnes’ boyfriend who is manifested in Tilly’s mind as a giant cube of jello. It’s all brought to life through puppets, costumes, artful projections, and lazy susan scene changes.
She Kills Monsters is a great choice for a university production as the cast is all close enough in age to the characters to remember thinking about life this way and how serious those pubescent impressions and experiences are. All the actors commit to the drama, bringing the audience into the world of teenage discovery, fantasy, and horror.
The final product is an ode to the power of imagination. Nguyen doesn’t get much into the darkness of loss or the dangers of diving into another person’s inner thoughts pre- or postmortem. He leaves the audience to ponder those ethics after the show and instead celebrates how stories and imagination connect people to one another.
There is something magical about entering another person’s creation. Like how reading a great novel or seeing a great play puts you in conversation with the author and creates a bond between you that withstands even the grave. So Agnes, lost in mundane normal life, can reconnect with her kid sister and maybe even learn from her imagination long after she’s gone.
Running Time: 85 minutes, with no intermission.
She Kills Monsters plays through November 15, 2026, presented by Georgetown University Department of Performing Arts at the Gonda Theatre of the Davis Performing Arts Center, Georgetown University, 3700 O St NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($5 general admission) online.
Direction by Van Tran Nguyen & William Hart; Scenic Design by Shartoya Jn.Baptiste; Lighting Design by Callan Daniel; Projection Design by Andres Poch; Costume Design by Dorothy Barnes Driggers; Sound Design by Justin Schmitz
