Acting Without Boundaries actress makes Arden debut in 'The Glass Menagerie'

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The Arden Theatre Company in Old City is kicking off its 35th anniversary season with a new staging of the beloved Tennessee Williams' classic, 'The Glass Menagerie.'

A Villanova actress is making her Arden debut, and breaking boundaries along the way.

Hannah Brannau is a Saint Joseph's University alumna. She says this classic play about dreams, deception and our collective need for connection is perfectly timed for this moment.

"The isolation and the pain that these characters feel is beautiful," Brannau says. "I think it's really timely -- in this time of us slowly coming out of our own isolation and living in the time of COVID."

Hannah has Cerebral Palsy, and she found her passion for acting at the age of 13 through the Delaware County theater group Acting Without Boundaries.

"As a young person, I think I took the idea of theater as maybe if I'm playing a character, people won't notice how different I am, or they won't pay attention to how different I am," said Brannau.

She says she learned the opposite and embraced the notion that acting is the ultimate vehicle to showcase everything that makes us all unique.

"It doesn't matter how different you are," Brannau says. "Those differences are beautiful, and this is what you're coming in with. Come with it and use it. Allow yourself to be seen in the way that you are made the way that you are."

The Glass Menagerie runs through November 6 at the Arden Theatre Company.