Review: Teen girls communicate through music in vivid ACT premiere  

How you feel about watching the emotional roller coaster rides of contemporary teen girls—and perhaps whether you were a teenage girl with vivid memories of that period of your life—could affect how you feel about Eisa Davis’ new play “||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||.” 

A world premiere at American Conservatory Theater (in a coproduction with the off-Broadway Vineyard Theatre), the musically infused one-act drama follows a summer in the lives of four gifted high school girls. They are the lucky participants in a music program in the East Bay. 

Ambitious, charismatic Fax (Hillary Fisher) is a singer with an operatic voice anxiously preparing for her solo. She’s focused and hard-working. 

Taciturn drummer Margot (Naomi Latta), unlike by-the-book Fax, believes improvisation is the highest form of musical achievement. 

Wild, wacky Rile (Yeena Sung) is an astonishing pianist—when she’s sober. 

Clementine (Gianna DiGregorio Rivera), sunny and owlish in big glasses, plays various instruments and refuses to involve herself in the others’ emotional upheavals. 

And upheavals they are. The angst of the teenage years is referenced here: bulimia, jealousy, insecurity and self-doubt, loneliness, boy problems, parent problems and more. 

What sets these girls apart is the way that music reaches deep into their souls—and that they have the opportunity to explore it. “Words are so not my vibe,” says secretive, isolated Margot. The way that quiet Margot and chatterbox Fax bond early on (“My mom calls me an over-communicator,” says Fax) is touching but never overflows, always stays, thankfully, within the boundaries of realism. These girls are vulnerable and, to one degree or another, unstable, and their everchanging relationships hew close to reality. 

This is very much a play about how music shapes these girls. It could have been a different art form playwright Davis chose in order to probe the inner thoughts and feelings of her characters, but music gives the play a chance to explore in theatrical ways this particular art form, and to allow the characters to express themselves in ways that teenagers don’t always know how to do: to communicate on a deep, nonverbal level.  

Still, some of the scenes tend to be too didactic. Margot’s determination to convert Fax to composing and improvising jazz, which Margot sees as the highest form of musical expression, gets tiresome after a while (perhaps not for true jazz lovers). At times, it feels like Davis is determined to convert the audience as much as Margot is trying to convert Fax to her way of conceptualizing music.  

As directed by ACT Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon, the actors seem so deep into their characters that even though they’re all adults, they’re completely convincing as today’s schoolgirls. MacKinnon moves them in easy, natural ways around the Strand’s relatively small stage, fitted rather elegantly by set designer Nina Ball with not much more than a drum set, a piano, a few moveable pieces and sharply angular flats beautifully lit by designer Russell H. Champa. 

Amid the plethora of freeform music and music practice and a few other unnecessary flourishes— including audience participation at the beginning— “||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||” could have moved along more quickly. But by the end, which is satisfying and well-earned, you may feel attached to these four girls. Surely at least one of them reminds you of yourself at that age. 

American Conservatory Theater’s “||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||” continues through April 19, 2026 at the Strand Theater, 1127 Market St., San Francisco. Tickets are $25-$130 at act-sf.org.