Shows & Tickets

How soon after someone dies are you allowed to talk about them in past tense? Should we wear black for 40 days? Does peer pressure come into casket selection? Playwright/Performer Val Lieske takes audiences on a journey to embrace and accept the normality of thinking about strange things like pantyhose on the day of your father’s funeral. A personal story contemplating death, grieving, and whether or not there is pie in heaven.

"Past Tense stick in my mind as one of the most moving pieces of theatre I have ever seen. The honesty is tremendous." – Karen Johnson-Diamond

Written & Performed by Val Lieske

Through a swirl of nearly missed connections, an assortment of intersecting lives unfold in on each other.

Journey along world-wide adventures, break-ups for the books, an internet prank gone awry. and characters who ping-pong into, around, and away from each other. A story that makes space for the seemingly random connections and funny but familiar investigations of what it is to lose, and be touched by the serendipity of life.

"Shimmers with wit, heart, and a gentle but affecting wisdom." – San Diego Union Tribune

By Steven Dietz
Directed by Heather Laubenstein

During a rain-drenched summer in New York City, a determined single-mother navigates the mundane, shattering, and sublime aspects of caring for a chronically sick child. A remarkable powerful and compassionate portrait of a contemporary woman striving for grace, Mary Jane journeys to a kind of enlightenment: when the most unfathomable things happen, we continue on, relying on the often surprising communities that surround us.

"A play with unexpected grace and optimism and one that offers faith in the power of communion." – Vogue

"A heart-stopping play. Amy Herzog's devestating new work is must see theatre for anyone with a heart." – Variety

By Amy Herzog
Directed by Barrett Hileman