This World Premiere play explores redemption and the oftentimes turbulent relationship between faith and mental health through the eyes of a mother and daughter.

An agoraphobic travels the rough terrain of guilt and loss as she struggles to hide key details about her son’s death from her estranged daughter. As the 10th anniversary of the devastating family tragedy approaches, Bonnie and her daughter, Jesse, will either find new faith in each other, or destroy what little they have left.

In Petie, a new play written by and starring Lori Fischer and directed by Martha Banta, the dark mistakes that haunt us never leave the downstage corner of our minds. This well-performed, thoughtful drama about a family haunted by a tragedy explores the intricacies of intimacy and the difficulty of moving on. Bonnie and her daughter Jesse live in Red Bank, Tennessee, where Jesse works at the local discount department store and Bonnie never leaves the house. Their relationship is strained, and we quickly learn why: a little boy named Petie died 10 years ago, and the anniversary of his death is on the horizon. Over the course of the play, the details of their relationship and history are revealed, and both women must confront what they hide from each other and what they choose to forget. Daddy, who we learn has mental disabilities and is somehow responsible for the death, spends the entirety of the play in a boat downstage left, and Petie himself, actually played by a little boy, reappears throughout the play in Bonnie’s terrorizing imagination. Bonnie is fragile like a vintage collectible plate, while Jesse has numbed herself from the pain of it all through cutting and the hard hat …Read more