On Oct. 24 and Oct. 25, at the Patricelli ’92 Theater, SHADES, Wesleyan’s Student of Color Theater Collective, presented a production of “I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire,” directed by Michael Scott ’27.
Written by American playwright Samantha Hurley, “I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire” follows 14-year-old Shelby Hinkley (Kiara Reeves ’26), president of the Tobey Maguire online fan club, as she endeavors to marry her one true love, Mr. Maguire. Set in 2004, Tobey Maguire (Natalie Piergrossi ’28) is at the height of his career, and there is nothing Shelby desires more than to be his bride. To ensure a successful wedding, Shelby tracks down his location, tosses him in a bus, and locks him in her basement.
When he awakes in Shelby’s home, Maguire is livid, trying to figure out why he is no longer at his wisdom teeth removal surgery. Maguire, in disbelief of his current circumstances, berates Shelby, convincing himself he is on an intense trip. After succumbing to reality, a disheveled and distressed Maguire attempts to escape Shelby’s clutch for the remainder of the show.
Though Scott has acted before, this was his first time directing a show. And he said it took some major adjusting.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Scott said in an interview with the Argus. “I came into it wanting to learn as much as possible, and I knew my timeline was a little bit insane. We opened the theater season, so [I knew I] need to be as understanding, but as organized, as possible.”
Scott’s described how love for the show and his crew eased some of that stress.
“I loved the play, and I knew it was a great story,” Scott said. “I think the script is so solid that even if I’m a bad director, I can’t mess with that. Even if it’s the worst-directed production, people would still be able to connect to that story.”
Scott added that the idea for the show came about by chance when he was scrolling on TikTok.
“This girl was talking about the process of writing a play about a fourteen-year-old girl who is obsessed with Tobey Maguire and kidnaps him in her basement and forces him to marry her,” he said. “This sounds so insane. I need to see how this goes.”
It wasn’t until later that the play returned to Scott’s radar.
“I was scrolling on this website called Concord Theatricals, which is a licensing body,” he said. “I go on there to find new plays to read, and one of the featured plays was ‘I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire.’”
The show premiered off Broadway in New York City, N.Y., in 2023, then in London, England in 2024.
“The most difficult part, as someone coming [in] exclusively as an actor, is that there are so many technical aspects where I’m like ‘I would have never thought about that,’” Scott said. “I was very lucky to have such a great team of experienced technical people.”
Scott especially highlighted stage manager Jerry Persaud ’26.
The chaos of this play is one of its greatest attributes, offering the audience a truly absurd theatrical experience. Upon handcuffing Tobey Maguire in her basement, Shelby forces the movie star to—as you can glean from the show’s title—marry her. Playing “Chapel of Love” by the Dixie Cups, Shelby skips around in a wedding dress as she entreats Maguire to take her hand in marriage. Maguire, who is equally disturbed by the kidnapping and his kidnapper, retaliates against Shelby, who later performs a pseudo-ceremony, “bonding” the two by the law of marriage.
Searching for an escape, Maguire hears a voice coming from one of the many posters of himself plastered on Shelby’s basement wall. It’s his inner conscience, played by Leela Yohannes ’29. A one-girl Greek Chorus, Yohannes plays “Everyone Else” (i.e., not Maguire or Shelby), including Shelby’s inner conscience and Shelby’s mother. The juxtaposition between the real-life Tobey Maguire and his superstar persona not only disheartens Maguire but also disillusions Shelby, distorting her idyllic image of Maguire and eventually encouraging her to end their “relationship.” She later realizes that Tobey Maguire is an addict, yearning for any available variety of intoxication (even from a plastic bag full of spray paint) and not the dreamy Spider-Man she had known him to be. For Scott, this strain, and the audience’s emotional response, excited him most.
“Even if people don’t like it,” Scott said. “I think that’s fine because at least it made them feel something. I think the worst nightmare is indifference.”
Shelby is not thrust back into reality until the end of the play, as she is primarily engulfed in a state of euphoria, melting into delirium. Unable to see her flawed execution of such an obscene plan, Shelby basks in her success, having solved all her problems by latching on to the fantasy of Tobey Maguire, who is less than enthused by this debacle. Sprinkled with pop hits from the 2000s, this tween dream has an insidious undertone. Shelby’s obsessive tendencies are revealed as a genetic plight gifted by her father that is exacerbated by her mother’s neglect. As the adventures of Shelby and Tobey come to an end, the play concludes on a bittersweet note with Shelby renouncing her position as leader of Maguire’s online fan club and pondering her tragic existence.
Maneuvering through this fantastic world, Scott highlighted the cast’s brilliance.
“Throughout the [rehearsal] process, there were certain jokes that, no matter how much I heard them, I would still laugh just from how funny the joke is, or how the actors change things as time went on,” he said. “It was just such a joy to just get to laugh with everyone.”
In this three-person cast, everyone shone, and each actor gave brilliant comedic and dramatic performances throughout the play. Reeves dazzles in Y2K bliss as she prances about in nonsensical delight, reaching out to the puerile tween girl in all of us. Piergrossi captivates with her uninhibited portrayal of Maguire, painting his character with complexity and even charm when snorting spray paint and engaging in verbal use against his captor. Everyone Else (Yohannes) compliments both the harrowing and hilarious predicaments in which Shelby and Maguire find themselves. From the role of a talking Tobey Maguire poster to a zany cornhole-consumed realtor, Yohannes floods the production with humor, whimsy, and levity in each appearance.
“I love all the people who were involved with this,” Scott said. “It took a lot of work to put this team together, but in the end, I was just so lucky to work with everyone. The actors in this cast are among the best performers I’ve ever been able to work with.”
Ultimately, “I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire” is an exhilarating farce about parasocial relationships and the desperation that arises from loneliness. Though Shelby commits an outrageous crime, her intent is not malicious, nor is her heart. Crumbling from the weight of isolation, Shelby is overcome with frenzied emotions, driving her to cross boundaries to find solace in the Tobey Maguire-decorated void that is her life.
“People don’t really understand how much work goes into creating a production, or how much each person has to believe in it,” Scott said about audience reception. “We don’t get [academic] credit for this. We’re not paid to do this. We do it for the love of the game. Now, for every other show I see, I will know truly how much time and work and specificity is put into creating this thing.”
As a member of SHADES, Scott also wanted to highlight the SOC theater collective.
“In this production, both in the cast and the crew, we were able to have so many identities and backgrounds reflected, which is something I care about a lot,” he said. “We also had people who were doing theater for the first time, because a lot of people come from schools without arts programs, or [they] may have been too busy working in high school to get a chance to participate in theater. Historically, SHADES has done a lot of stories about marginalized communities and identity, but this story didn’t necessarily have to do with identity. Since we had such a diverse cast and crew, I think it really reflects SHADES’s values of bringing people of all different backgrounds together to make fun theater.”
Kendra Williams can be reached at kwilliams05@wesleyan.edu.
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