She’s nine, Judith! nine!
Someone at a nearby table in the bar would hear and see the roiling passion of the two middle aged women that provoked this shouting outburst and chalk it up to one too many Tequila Sunrises.
We don’t.
We don’t because we know THE backstory. In The Totality of All Things by Erik Gernand these are the words for the final rupture between two besties, who are also daughters of two besties. They are poorly paid teachers in a rural Indiana high school. One woman is a church-going cultural conservative who somehow finds time to make her friend’s favorite biscuits to help cheer her up after she has been the target of a hate crime. The other friend is an award-winning star journalism teacher. The hate crime was a swastika painted over a bulletin board display this journalism teacher put up to celebrate Pride Month and newly Supreme Court-sanctioned Gay Marriage.
We also don’t chalk up this altercation to too many drinks because we live in the very same America playwright Erik Gernand does, and the same America these characters do. It’s now a decade or so down the road from the moment of this play, and when the eroded we came into more than clear view. This isn’t our parents' America where sleeping dogs lay. This is an America where all suffer outrages that violate their core. One friend quakes at the idea that a man in a dress might teach her children. The other woman can’t brook the idea that her friend won’t just let somebody marry whomever they want to marry.
We never meet the nine year-old girl the scream is about. The tensions between the two friends are tornado-strong. This disruption makes possible the previously unthinkable act of missing a nine-year old’s birthday party— an occasion we infer is one where you are clearly an expected feature of the celebration.
UP Theater Finds Script to Challenge Our Core
UP Theater’s six actors, the creative team and the play’s director, Shannon Patterson, do a more than adequate job of letting this award-winning script steal the spotlight. As if dusting off the adage All Politics is Personal, the play takes us beyond the black and white of labels and into the murky grey where truths are revealed to have invisible ink question marks. NO SPOILERS HERE — you have to see the play to experience the surprises that lay within this peeling onion of our divide. It’s possible you may want to see this play a second time. In this reviewer’s opinion, it’s that good.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
CAST:
Joseph Dean Anderson*
Colleen Clinton*
Logan Floyd*
Cody Jenison
DeAnna Lenhart*
Rik Walter*
CREATIVE TEAM:
Directed by Shannon Patterson
Playwright: Erik Gernand
Production Stage Manager - Sophia Flynn
Assistant Director - Em Walter
Set Designer - Scott Aronow
Lighting Designer - Shane Hennessy
Sound Designer - David Margolin Lawson
Costume Designer - Sofie Daley
Graphic Designer - Julia Granger
Press Agent - Peter Marino
WHEN:
May 7–17, 2026
WHERE:
Theater 154
154 Christopher Street
NY, NY 10014
TICKETS:
$25+
For more information and tickets visit the UP Theater Company website.
Photos: Mikiodo
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About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
