They take in a deep breath and tiptoe their way across the cleanly swept and painted black stage, careful to not make a sound in the void of darkness all around. Kyla Williams slinks to the desk on the left and Aiza Daud creeps up the ladder center stage. The lights on the stage illuminate their faces, and spotlights follow their every move. They are in unison word by word; line by line; movement by movement. Daud then slowly descends and disappears behind the glob of people that is the ensemble while the crowd of people speaks darkly to the audience.

                `On November 19, 20, and 21, productions class will be performing The Angelina Project for anyone who wants to attend at 8:00 P.M. The show is set both in the present and the past telling the story of a thesis, murder, abuse, family and the Italian way of life.  Williams and Daud will be playing Amela Covello and Angelina Napolitano.

                “Angelina is very different from who I am,” Daud said. “The emotions I have to portray through her are emotions I have never felt before, so it’s very challenging.”

                In the show Daud is a character in the past that had a psycho husband whom she later murdered with an axe in order to protect herself and her children.

                “Amelia is researching a case that she is fixated on,” Williams said. “Then her family life, she realizes, doesn’t add up.”

                Angelina is full-blood Italian, so there are a lot of Italian phrases in the show such as “passatemi, presto, un’ascia assassina “ [“Quick! Give me an axe!”] that she says. But for Daud, who speaks Spanish, English, Arabic and ASL, it isn’t too difficult to learn.

                “It makes me feel lucky that it comes easy to me because of Spanish,” Daud said.  “The Italian and Spanish are really alike.”

                The Angelina Project refers several times to spousal abuse and being a woman’s right advocate.

“I enjoy playing Angelina because she is a strong woman [and] I admire that in her,” Daud said. “It’s about doing the wrong thing for the right reason.”

Williams said that she feels the play is about finding one’s inner strength and having the strength to pull out something for the best even if it creates a worse situation.  Angelina had passed a dark gene through the entire generation and Williams’ character, Amelia, needs to fight it.

“I get to be a vessel for this character to show the world, and possibly teach the world, something they may not have thought of before,” Williams said. “I get to show what this character wants to tell.”