Published by New Jersey Stage
originally published: 03/30/2025
(NEW YORK, NY) -- The United Solo Festival will host the New York premiere of Susan Chase's solo play Mother’s Day on Wednesday, April 16, 2025 at 7:00pm - just before she begins a tour of Pennsylvania and New England, to conclude on Mother's Day, 2025 for an audience of mothers and their children in Mystic, CT. The 90-minute theatrical tour-de-force uses spoken word, music, dance, and film to celebrate the women who made us.
Chase began writing Mother's Day in 2024 as a simple memoir of her mother, who spent her final years in a dementia facility, and died of covid in 2020. However, the play blossomed into an homage to ALL mothers – both historical archetypes and ordinary women in our own lives.
“Writing the play was an act of love,” Chase says, “I honestly could not keep myself from writing it. I shared the play with a few friends in early 2024, and began envisioning a small tour in 2025. To my surprise and delight, I learned in January that the play had been selected by the United Solo Festival in New York! This gave me the confidence to begin building a tour— of New England, where I grew up — and of Pennsylvania, where I live now.”
Chase continues, “I have been very moved by the responses of people who have seen the show – it really seems to resonate across all generations. As one audience member enthused, ‘Well . . . everybody has a mother’.”
Tickets are available for purchase online. Theatre One at Theatre Row is located at 410 W. 42nd Street in New York, NY.
In Mother’s Day Chase shares her journey as she tries to fully “see” her mother. “Mothers are God-like. They create us. But they also create a world – and place us at the center of that world.”
Sadly, she discovers that it is nearly impossible to fully see our mothers.
“My mother was the sun of my life; too bright, too intense to see. No – she could only be seen at dusk. In the twilight of old age and dementia.”
Veering from sentimental to skeptical, from harrowing to hilarious, Mother’s Day celebrates the women who made us. It is especially dedicated to those mothers who are no longer with us, except in our memories and our dreams.
The Creative Team includes: Susan Chase, Playwright and Performer; Sydney Smith, Multimedia Designer and Technical Director; Justin Solonynka, Original Arrangements and Accompaniment; and Directorial Assistance by Gerard Stropnicky.
United Solo - the world's largest solo theatre festival - takes place March 18 through April 20, 2025 at Theatre Row. United Solo™ is a theatre company based in New York City, dedicated to the genre of one-person performance. Their goal is to present solo pieces, both local and international; discover original scripts; bring creators together; exchange perspectives; and inspire creativity related to solo performance.
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