**NO SPOILERS**This directorial debut from Danita Hamel had the audience laughing and crying. A sweet, sweet story about love, last words, chance meetings, and second chances.
Joy receives a new heart and finds herself questioning whether she deserves a second chance. The donor’s family struggles with losing their son as their relationships fall apart. These two worlds collide and in each other, they find what they need to move forward.
Billie Travelstead plays Joy with sharp wit and tenderness. She is fun to watch and her eyes say much more than she lets on. Hank is played by Tim Jaeger, who is new to me. He has some great moments but felt like he was holding back at times. I hope it was just opening day stuff, as I think he would make a great addition to the Majestic theatre stable of actors. Robert Best plays Jack with just the right amount of intensity and sweetness as usual. He’s free with his accessibility to emotion and knows just how much we need to get the point across. Angeliki de Morgan plays Alice sharply, honestly, and openly. Angie’s not afraid to put things out there and she has a great comedic timing for this type of dialogue. Andrea Ardens plays Sammy with just the right amount of hippy dippy which seemed to resonate with quite a few people in the audience. She was a delight! Debbie Wright plays Darla and has some fun moments navigating the flip-floppiness of her character’s personality. There a few times I would’ve liked a bit more personality definition from her as it was a bit too similar to Sammy; but overall, she brings great energy to the stage. Katherine Otten plays the nurse with the bigness and boldness Katherine brings. She plays for laughs and gets them.
As a debut, Danita made strong choices which worked quite well; however, I suggest getting there early and sit in the first two rows or the elevated rows in the back. I sat in the third row and had difficulty seeing without shifting my line of sight between people’s heads. The action takes place at the far end of the room on the floor and the actors spend a lot of time in chairs. To be fair, it can be a tricky room for staging when you need more space than the stage platforms might allow…
I encourage you to see this show. It’s warm, funny, and quite touching. It’s a great debut and the actors are wonderful! Click here for tickets and showtimes. Two show remain: Sunday the 23rd at 3 pm and 7 pm.