Pinky Promise

Overview

This world-premiere production explores the nuanced emotional lives of three tweens on the precipice of adolescence, set in the vibrant, emotionally-charged microcosm of a summer camp in 2005. When a deep rift forms in the friendship between our ensemble Hiedi, Miriam, and Phoebe, what unravels is a comedic and heartbreaking meditation on loyalty, identity, and growing up. At its core, Pinky Promise is about a moment that can feel world-ending at age twelve, and still echo decades later.

Pinky Promise is created through Paper Doll’s signature collaborative devising process, with surreal visuals, heightened physicality, and a fierce comedic edge, the piece captures the terrifying exhilaration of change—where hobby horses, pop songs, and the sacred power of a pinky promise collide.

Adult performers embody their preteen characters with uncanny precision, highlighting the tension between how we experience youth and how we remember it. In its most ambitious production to date, Paper Doll welcomes Carly Bodnar as guest director. 

Funny, painful, and achingly familiar, Pinky Promise invites audiences to revisit the formative fractures of early friendship—and ask how our earliest heartbreaks shape who we become.

About the Artist

Paper Doll Ensemble creates is a feminist theatre ensemble that devises absurdist tragicomedies. They use improvisation to create and develop performance art that redefines traditional stories of the female experience. 

Paper Doll Ensemble is a feminist theatre collective founded in 2017 by Amanda Jensen, Sara Vanasse, and Grayce Carson. Paper Dolls devise original work that combines comedy, dance theatre, and visual art to create captivating worlds with character-driven narratives that illuminate the absurdity of everyday life and our political climate. Their work has been featured at Plays & Players Theatre in Center City, the Philly Fringe Festival, Alabama International Fringe, Ukraine Fringe, and "East to Edinburgh" with 59E59 Theaters in New York. For more, visit paperdollensemble.com

Credits