When:
April 26, 2024 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
America/New York Timezone
2024-04-26T19:00:00-04:00
2024-04-26T21:00:00-04:00
Where:
The Hills Art
66 Congress St
Portland, ME 04101
USA
66 Congress St
Portland, ME 04101
USA
Cost:
$30.00
Contact:
The Hills Art
KEEPING IT INN
Functionally dysfunctional families start with well-intended choices and usually lead to unraveling consequences. When Nancy dies at ninety-three, she stumbles on the chance to explain her six decades as a mother of seven, wife and innkeeper. Nancy and her husband Reg leap from suburban Connecticut to rural New Hampshire to become innkeepers without a speck of experience. Running a ramshackle Inn deepens their love and keeps them busy enough to hold their sorrows at bay. As Nancy’s life tour continues, she reconsiders her choices and the unmistakable evidence that tending our hearts is necessary. When dementia consumes her, she maintains her conviction, humor and sass as she shares a bit more wisdom about family connection, lasting love and the need to adapt right to the final exit ramp.
Functionally dysfunctional families start with well-intended choices and usually lead to unraveling consequences. When Nancy dies at ninety-three, she stumbles on the chance to explain her six decades as a mother of seven, wife and innkeeper. Nancy and her husband Reg leap from suburban Connecticut to rural New Hampshire to become innkeepers without a speck of experience. Running a ramshackle Inn deepens their love and keeps them busy enough to hold their sorrows at bay. As Nancy’s life tour continues, she reconsiders her choices and the unmistakable evidence that tending our hearts is necessary. When dementia consumes her, she maintains her conviction, humor and sass as she shares a bit more wisdom about family connection, lasting love and the need to adapt right to the final exit ramp.
“CINDY PIERCE IS, WAS AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE THE FUNNIEST WOMAN I HAVE EVER MET. SHE IS A NATURAL STORYTELLER.” – MIKE O’MALLEY, WHO PLAYS BURT HUMMEL ON GLEE
About Keeping It Inn and Cindy Pierce:
About Keeping It Inn and Cindy Pierce:
“Our mom was a bold and interesting woman with a quick wit. To honor her amazing life, I wrote KEEPING IT INN in which I play my mother over the last six decades of her life. As with many women of her time, internet searches yield more about her husband and kids rather than her powerful impact on the many people who knew her. My goal is to weave the spirit of our inspiring mom throughout the stories of her long life.” – Cindy Pierce
The lives of women who were born in the 1920s are rarely documented or even considered interesting. As a playwright and performer of Keeping It Inn, it is clear that Cindy Pierce had a front row seat watching her mother, Nancy Pierce break out of a conventional life expected of women her age and step into a whole new experience of becoming an innkeeper in New Hampshire.
Audiences are enveloped in the warmth, humor and vulnerability from the beginning to the end of this performance. Nancy and Reg ran Pierce’s Inn together for thirty-one years and found joy in the mundane as much as the exciting times. As a mom, wife and innkeeper, Nancy connected with a wide variety of folks in her community and treasured time with their many children and grandchildren. She was a smart, funny and outspoken person who navigated life with flare and unrelenting optimism.
Pierce’s portrayal of her mother in Keeping It Inn explores family connection; caregiving for aging parents; devastating loss; a long, loving marriage; unhealed pain; and what holds in a person’s mind even when dementia robs their memory.
“Your gifted re-creation of your mother’s life with such an abundance of humor, care and love was extraordinary.” – Alice Harrison Hanover, N.H.
“I was laughing and crying; your show was funny, absorbing and HONEST.” Michael Livingston, Sharon, VT