Lena Wilson

Last Friday, I joined a queue of almost 40 people to see an experimental play. As we waited for the house doors to open, locals kept shooting us confused looks. The reason was pretty clear: it was 10pm, and we were lined up outside ES Wholesome Foods, a large bodega near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. For several weeks, ES has been home to Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California, a new production from The Tank. The play, which highlights the anxiety of female adolescence, revolves around five characters who have all worked for the same creepy supervisor at their local supermarket. But the nearly all-female cast and crew of Joan of Arc have had the opposite experience with the men behind the counter at ES.  “They’re looking out for us,” said Anna Mader, one of the show’s producers, in an interview this week. Photograph: Courtesy Ellie GravitteKhali Sykes and Madeline Wasson By day, ES is an airy shop that caters to the evolving community of southeastern Crown Heights. It's stocked with ice pops located above rows of organic frozen meals, shelves of canned ravioli and Mrs. Meyer’s cleaning products. There are all the expected New York fixings: a deli counter, an ATM, a friendly resident cat named Benito. It’s no supermarket in California, but it is eerily well-equipped for Joan of Arc. The second aisle is wide enough to accommodate two rows of folding chairs, and there’s a security camera—an object referenced multiple times in the play—smack in the middle of its ceiling.  Ma