By Erin Flynn Jay<\/p>\n
For playwright and screenwriter DJ Hills, the voices of Horsegirl and Cowdaddy first appeared while they were walking through a small Pennsylvania town.<\/p>\n
It was early 2021, and Hills was back home visiting family. They were wandering around a place where they had performed theater before when, almost unexpectedly, the characters began to take shape.<\/p>\n
Horsegirl is a 30-something trans woman. Cowdaddy is her quiet, devoted father. And together, they became the center of Hills\u2019 new play, ‘Horsegirl & Cowdaddy<\/a>,’ which explores family, identity, love and the question of what it means to build a life in a rural community.<\/p>\n Now, the play is coming home.<\/p>\n On Sept. 22, the Wilma Theater<\/a> will present the world premiere of ‘Horsegirl & Cowdaddy,’ a co-production with New York-based theater Soho Rep<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Hills, having the play premiere in Philadelphia \u2014 and in Pennsylvania \u2014 carries special meaning.<\/p>\n \u201cI have so much fondness for where I grew up,\u201d said Hills. \u201cIn my subjective opinion, it’s one of the most beautiful places in the country. I have a lot of love for that part of PA.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Hills grew up in western Maryland, about 30 minutes outside Hagerstown and near the Pennsylvania border. Rural Pennsylvania, in particular, became an important backdrop for the play.<\/p>\n The idea began taking shape in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Hills found themselves frustrated by conversations about people living in rural America, particularly transgender people.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of discourse \u2014 at least in my circles \u2014 around why don’t these (trans) people just think like us? Why can’t they just understand X, Y, and Z?\u201d<\/p>\n Those conversations made Hills think about the trans people they had grown up with and alongside.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big question that the play is asking is, \u2018What would it mean for trans people to continue to live and thrive in these rural spaces? Why is there this assumption that people, in order to be their full self, have to leave and go to particularly urban places?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The play unfolds on the outskirts of a small southern Pennsylvania town, where Horsegirl lives a quiet life built around familiar routines with her father. She works at a dollar store, paints horses<\/a> she has never ridden and spends her evenings watching television with Cowdaddy while imagining the life of the mother who left them years ago.<\/p>\n Then Horsegirl falls for Bethel, an ambitious transmasculine teacher new to town, and their relationship awakens new possibilities and sparks a startling physical transformation.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Hills, the play is both a challenge to assumptions about rural life and a love letter to the communities that inspired it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe play has so much love for PA and is set in PA,” Hills said. “It was really exciting for me for the play to start its world premiere here in Philly, here in Pennsylvania.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Directed by Adil Mansoor, the cast includes New York City-based creator and performer Samora de la Brisa, New York City-based actor Ni-Ni, and Wilma Artistic Director Lindsay Smiling.<\/p>\n