UT Theatre & Dance Makes It Real: He Said, She Said Exposes the Unspoken Rules of Teen Relationships

AUSTIN, TX — January 2026 — He Said, She Said premieres at FronteraFest on January 16, 2026, with a creative decision that drives the production’s voice and credibility: playwright-director-producer Camden Factor has built the show around young talent shaped by The University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Theatre and Dance, casting Jason Robalino, Max Cheng, and Isaiah Jones—all connected to UT Theatre and Dance—alongside Sofia Spanhel, a UT English Department student. UT’s theatre training emphasizes disciplined craft, ensemble precision, and truthful contemporary performance, and Factor’s approach leverages that rigor to achieve what this material demands: dialogue that sounds like teenagers actually speak, behavior that reads as socially accurate, and performances controlled enough to handle difficult themes without melodrama. Factor noted, “What’s extraordinary about this cast is that every rehearsal comes with real-world intelligence—each actor brings lived perspective, and every one of them knows someone who has been caught up in a situation like this.”

The play itself is a contemporary drama examining power dynamics and consent in teenage relationships, and the peer culture that shapes how violations are understood—or minimized. He Said, She Said follows a 16-year-old girl, her 17-year-old boyfriend, and his friends as a boundary-crossing moment reverberates through a social group: who rationalizes it, who challenges it, and how quickly the environment can normalize what should be treated as serious. Rather than staging an abstract debate, Factor aims to capture the lived language and social “rules” of today’s high school world—where people may believe a victim yet still treat the violation as common, unsurprising, and therefore not worth confronting.

That goal hinges on performance technique as much as casting age. This script is built on subtext and small shifts—evasions, peer reinforcement, strategic silence—and those moments require actors who can listen, pivot, and sustain psychological truth moment-to-moment. UT Theatre and Dance training provides that foundation through text analysis, scene work, and ensemble discipline, allowing the production to stay realistic while remaining theatrically sharp.

The same UT Theatre and Dance–anchored professionalism extends to creative involvement. Tech assistant Mason Ousley, also in UT theatre department, whose portfolio highlights hands-on experience across theatrical design and build work, supports Factor’s staging with practical technical fluency—helping create a clean, believable environment that keeps the audience focused on language, behavior, and consequence rather than spectacle.

In combination, Factor’s casting of actors and creatives from UT’s Theatre and Dance program–positions He Said, She Said as a youth story told with unusual precision: current in voice, grounded in local culture, and elevated by conservatory-level craft. Next, this cast will reunite to adapt the play into a short film slated for submission to youth and independent film festivals across the United States.