This year, the Westford Academy Theater Arts program is performing The Wolves by Sarah Delappe for the Massachusetts Education Theater Guild state competition, and will be performing at the state final on March 28 after advancing past the preliminaries on March 2 and the Semi-Final on March 16.

The play is about a girls’ soccer team of 16-17-year-old girls. It shows all of the conversations the team has before games and practices, where they talk about things such as periods and their lives along with important world issues.

Following the metaphor of the wolf pack, there are certain members of the team that resemble parts of a real wolf pack. In a pack, there are two alphas, or leaders, an omega, which is considered the weakest of the pack, and beta, the second in command. Similarly, the wolf pack

In addition, the leading cause of death in wolf packs, other than because of people, is in pack fighting, and fighting between rival packs.

“There is a lot of infighting, and I think that stays true to what girls do. They kind of attack each other sometimes,” said sophomore Olivia Dunn, who plays number 11.

This play contains mature themes and strong language that are not typically used in Westford Academy plays. However, the topics that are discussed in this play are important and should be talked about. Some of the topics portrayed are the Khmer Rouge, eating disorders, and gender stereotypes.

“It’s interesting because sometimes our parents want to shield us from some of the things that are in the show, but it’s everything that we’re facing in day to day life and I think it’s opening up parents eyes to see that this is what we have to deal with,” said Dunn.

In addition to the mature themes displayed in this play, there is a lot of strong language.

“In The Wolves, we use the F-bomb so much that it almost loses its power after a while. Like people said they got used to hearing it… In high school we get so used to swearing that we don’t realize the power of the words,” said Dunn.

This play is very different from a lot of the other plays that WATA has done in previous years because the cast is all females, nine soccer players, and one soccer mom.

“It is very very rare that that you find a play with ten women period, much less a great play like this one, where the characters are teenage women,” said Michael Towers, the director of the play.

Towers also says that the purpose of this play is to take down gender stereotypes and challenge the way we traditionally see women. He says that the women in this play are warriors.

He believes it is also important that this play is shown in a high school, because the messages in this play are directed toward high schoolers.

This play is being performed at the METG competition of one-act plays from high schools around the state. They have already won in the first round called the preliminary round and the second round, the semi-final round. In the preliminary round, they compete against seven or eight other plays, and the top three plays move on. In the semi-final round, which was on Saturday, March 16 at Westford Academy. At this competition, there are typically six or seven other plays, and the top two move on. Since they have made it past semi-finals they will now move on to go to finals in Boston.

“Each of these women, they come to this collective, to this team, as we all do, regardless of age, come to a place, a space, an activity, a group, an organization, a team, because we are stronger as a pack, we are stronger together. These women are all very different, but they share at least one common thing to them, their love of this game, and ultimately their love of each other,” S\said Towers.