Persephone Palmer Steps Out is set during a wintery, sub-zero Summer in the 1990s in a basement apartment hundreds of feet below the ground. This is the home of the Palmer family, headed by the tempestuous and charismatic Connie, whose marriage to the devoted and enabling Herm oversees a fraught dynamic with her fractious stepson Joe. The occasional wandering-ins of Stef, Joe’s girlfriend, and their new friend Paul punctuate the isolated family’s routine, as do the shambolic visits from Connie’s brother Richard and his much-younger wife Lisa. Despite the magical setting of the play, the dynamics between the characters are rooted in realism – except for the fact that Persie, the Palmer’s 13-year-old human daughter, is the family’s “cat.” Yet as the landscape shifts and Persie begins to bond with some of the new visitors, it appears that some changes may be underway – for better or for worse. With character archetypes derived from Greek mythology, Persephone Palmer Steps Out is a darkly hilarious exploration of the god-like nature of familial hierarchies, the contingencies of love, conditional acceptance, and the divine, desperate pursuit of control. Trigger warnings: Domestic violence, reference to sexual assault.

Written by Caitlyn Waltermire. Natalie Thomas directs a cast of eight, including Sophie Kelly-Hedrick*, Zuhairah*, Guy Ventoliere*, Alec Febbraro, Diogo de Oliveira, Elizabeth Sherman, Phil Oetiker, and Jessalyn Charles. *Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association. AEA Showcase.

“This play explores parents’ godlike power from their children’s perspective—divine abuse of power, fate v. free will, sexual influence, and a hero’s journey—and so, its characters’ relationships reflect those between figures in Greek mythology,” shared playwright Caitlyn Waltermire. “Hades is a woman now! References to perpetual winter, ferry rides, snake sex, goose foreplay, smell of sulfur, etc. are all in this vein. Being a thirteen-year-old girl has been a heady nightmare since ancient Greece.”

The runtime is approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.