The Grown-Up

From the moment we first read "The Grown-Up" almost a year ago, the play resonated with the company. It perfectly captures the excitement, wonder, and magic of growing up as well as the bittersweetness and nostalgia that comes with leaving childhood behind and looking back on youth. The way Jordan Harrison balances the two is wonderful - if you lean too far into one world or the other you risk being trite or jaded; but Harrison allows us to explore the joy and the sadness beautifully together.

"The Grown-Up" also allows us to explore one of my favorite things about theatre - this is the kind of play that let's theatre do what it does best rather than trying to achieve what film can do so well. There are so many places and people in the play and the switches between them happen so quickly that instead of focusing on realistic representation we must explore what is universal and ineffable. You're drawn in, not because of a perfect replica of a place or time or person but by what the theatre makers in the ensemble have created and are forming on this night and at this very moment. It's a play that requires the theatre makers involved to create together onstage to make the piece come alive. It's one of the things Available Light Theatre does best and we were delighted to bring our collaborative compositional work (that we most often use in creating original works) to a beautifully scripted piece that allows so much room to exploration and play.

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Underground Review

The Grown-Up is a sad, funny, time-bending adventure about how to survive growing up. NPR called it “charming and painfully universal.” It involves an empty stage, a magic doorknob, and an extended metaphor about the power of imagination and storytelling.