There are only so many plays about 20-somethings making their big break in a big city that a person can take. So many monologues about first loves and first heartbreaks before everything becomes a blur, an amalgamation of the one before. Playwright Carey Crim set out to create something different in her show, “Morning After Grace,” which will fill the stage at Alhambra Theatre & Dining from April 9 through May 10.
“This play is my heart. It’s an exploration of grief, but it’s also using humor to get through grief,” Crim said. “I don’t necessarily, on the page, have a lot in common with the characters, but it feels like one of my most personal plays. It's not autobiographical, but everything in it is truthful.”
“Morning After Grace” is a romantic comedy that tackles love, loss and coming to terms with growing old. With only three cast members on stage throughout the entire performance, Crim explained that the relationship between the characters gives the play its soul.
It has been performed across the globe, from playhouses in Florida to stages in Poland, and draws inspiration from real-life experiences, giving a voice to characters who aren’t typically protagonists in your modern-day rom-coms.
“I really wanted to write a play that honored the spark that’s in everybody,” Crim said. “If it was going to be about people of a certain age, I didn’t want it to be about ailments or things like that. I wanted it to be about the stuff that people are actually dealing with at all stages of life.”
Crim, who spent her childhood attending shows at Alhambra, has always had a foot in the theater world. She pursued acting and studied at Northwestern University, eventually trying her hand at monologue writing, which led to full-blown play writing soon after.
She credits much of her success in the playwriting world to The Purple Rose Theatre in Michigan, which took a chance on her early plays. To this day, The Purple Rose Theatre still puts on many of the first renditions of Crim’s plays, so when the artistic director approached her to write a play with a specific actor in mind, Crim knew she could deliver.
“The artistic director said, ‘I have an actor named Randy Mantooth who did a previous play for us and he wants to come do another show, and I want you to write something for him,’” Crim explained, referring to the 80-year-old actor best known for his extensive career in the film/TV and theater world. “There were no parameters, it could be two characters or eight characters, but it needed to be funny.”
Around the same time, Crim happened to visit her family for dinner at Cypress Village when she overheard an older gentleman talk about meeting a romantic prospect at a recent funeral.
“He goes, ‘At our age, funerals are better than single’s bars,' and that line made it into the play,” Crim said. “It was also kind of the spark for the whole beginning of the play.”
The story may follow characters in a certain phase of their lives, but Crim insisted that the story is meant to connect with everybody. From Baby Boomers to Gen Z, Crim said that the core of the show has a universal appeal.
Her hope for the play is that guests walk away laughing, maybe even shedding a few cathartic tears.
“It’s never too late for a second chance, or third chance, even,” Crim said. “It’s never too late to find love. People can change, and it’s in community that we do the most healing.”
You can grab tickets to see “Morning After Grace” from April 9 through May 10 at alhambrajax.com.
