Review: "In Their Footsteps" Slides into the Boots of Women Who Served in Vietnam

In Their Footsteps

Written and directed by Ash Singer

Based on oral histories with Ann Kelsey, Judy Jenkins Gaudino, Jeanne "Sam" Christie, Lily Adams, and Doris "Lucki" Allen

Presented by Infinite Variety Productions in partnership with Bronx Music Heritage Center at Bronx Music Hall

438 E 163rd St., Bronx, NYC

October 16-26, 2025

L to R: Becca Jimenez, Esther Ayomide Akinsanya, Vianca Pérez, Amanda Corbett, and Eunji Lim. Photo by Natalia Arai 

Whatever progress has been made, the organized mass murder and ecological devastation of war continues to be recognized as a valid political exercise, and women continue to be insufficiently recognized in the historical record. It is precisely at the intersection of war and women's experience that documentary theater piece In Their Footsteps delves into the individual histories of a quintet of women who served, in military and civilian roles, during the Vietnam War. In Their Footsteps comes to us from Infinite Variety Productions (IVP), a theater company "dedicated to spotlighting women who have gone unnoticed throughout history" and which "hosts expert-led talk-backs, performs in alternative spaces …, and teaches educational workshops"; and the play, written and directed by IVP founder Ash Singer, is composed entirely and expertly from the oral histories of the women whom it presents. Having toured internationally, the award-winning In Their Footsteps has returned to the United States for the first time since before the pandemic for its limited run as the first theater production at the fabulous Bronx Music Hall, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary this month.

L to R: Esther Ayomide Akinsanya, Vianca Pérez, Becca Jimenez, and Amanda Corbett. Photo by Natalia Arai 

The play's opening lines humorously foreground the gendered inflections of the experience of serving in a combat zone, with Jeanne “Sam” Christie (Becca Jimenez), who worked for the Red Cross as a "Donut Dollie," tasked with boosting morale among troops, commenting on how soldiers would appropriate the tampons from the PX to clean their gun barrels with. Jeanne positions her going to Vietnam as an escape from her job teaching in Michigan, and her reminiscences segue into the other women's reasons for, expectations of, and paths to ending up in Vietnam during the war. They talk about the experience of arriving and their first days in Vietnam, which range from being taken out by some men from the Air Force to being hazed with being put on "guard duty" with a whistle; and they describe the jobs that they settled into. In addition to Jeanne's working as a Donut Dollie, Ann Kelsey (Amanda Corbett) worked in the Army Special Services as a librarian; Judy Jenkins Gaudino (Vianca Pérez) as a recreation director, also in the Army Special Services, a role seemingly well suited to her disposition; Dr. Doris “Lucki” Allen (Esther Ayomide Akinsanya) as an Intelligence Officer in the Women’s Army Corps; and Lily Adams (Eunji Lim) as a nurse in the Army Nurse Corps.

L to R: Esther Ayomide Akinsanya, Eunji Lim, Becca Jimenez, and Vianca Pérez. Photo by Natalia Arai 

In addition to learning about the women's challenges and victories in those roles, we hear stories on lighter topics such as what they did on a particular Christmas or on their days off, stories that include appreciating the stretches of quiet and the beauty of the country, at the same that, on the more sobering side, we hear about the dangers, including at the hands of American men–war, it seems, does not put a stop to intimate partner violence–of being a woman in a conflict zone, about feelings of isolation without or even among other women, and about male military members ignoring accurate intelligence information from Allen because she is a woman, or because she is Black, or, most likely, because of both. Discussions of how long each woman stayed in Vietnam and why interweave with revelations of turning points in their thinking about the war and the U.S. government. Part of these stories is also the struggles that the women faced after returning, but another part is the eventual formation of female communities for those who had served and acknowledgment of the further accomplishments of the women represented on the stage, such as Adams's activism around the impact of Agent Orange.

 L to R: Becca Jimenez, Vianca Pérez (center), and Amanda Corbett. Photo by Natalia Arai 

The set design employs a handful of wooden crates that the actors deftly reconfigure to represent everything from a hilltop to a helicopter to a bunker during the Tet Offensive; and many of the production's sound effects–the clack of a typewriter, the noise of a game of table tennis–are made by the actors as well; the sound design augments these live elements, which also include impactful instances of song, with occasional snippets of archival audio (one such excerpt, from a report on the Kent State shootings, stood out as particularly relevant to our current moment). The cast does terrific work in embodying Kelsey, Allen, Christie, Jenkins Gaudino, and Adams as nuanced individuals among the commonalities of their experiences, down to details such as Lim's Adams beginning the play separated from the rest, offstage and down an aisle, or Akinsanya's Allen making frequent use of a flask; and when a particular woman is recounting an experience, the rest of the actors often switch fluidly into other roles, male soldiers, Vietnamese, children, and so on, to fill out the scene. The production's concluding scene adroitly marries embodied, visual, and audio elements to moving and powerful effect before leaving the audience with the final words, "No war is worth it." As the play notes, women's service in Vietnam is incompletely documented in historical records and even on the Vietnam Memorial. In Their Footsteps represents one more step to remedying that lack and, for theatergoers, is well worth it while doing so.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards