Pictured: Jack Wetherall and Catherine Smitko in Asolo Rep's production of Morning After Grace. Photo by John Revisky.

With the final preview tonight, Asolo Repertory Theatre officially opens its second production of the month this Friday with the comedy Morning After Grace. Written by playwright Carey Crim and directed by Peter Amster, the story follows the amorous pair of Abigail and Angus, two tenants of a Florida retirement home whose post-funeral one night stand leads to new questions about their future. Throw in a retired professional baseball player named Ollie and it’s a bit like an old-fashioned sitcom, says Amster. “Except in this case, it’s old people behaving badly.”

Frankly, Amster found that to be a big draw. At a time when a majority of theater programming is designed to bring in a new and younger audience, productions that speak more directly to the older audience are a treat. “Every once in a while it’s nice to celebrate who’s actually going to the theater,” laughs Amster. “I’m a 68 year old man and it’s speaking to my people.”

And Amster’s people in the Asolo audience will get to see their own version of the show, in a way, as Amster and Crim have also taken the production as an opportunity to give the play its final workshop. Though enjoying its world premiere up in Michigan at the Purple Rose Theatre in 2016, Morning After Grace never received a proper workshop, due to the principal actor (and inspiration for the show) falling ill during rehearsal. “So this is [Crim’s] opportunity to strengthen it, change it, make things clearer and funnier,” says Amster. “And she’s so much fun to work with. She jumps in with both feet and an enormous spirit of generosity.”

At the same time, Amster remains confident that the play can speak to younger crowds as well. Comedy is comedy, and Morning After Grace relies less on old-timey knee-slappers as it does character-driven situational comedy and a solid emotional center. Whether directing drama or comedy, says Amster, it always comes back to the truth of the matter, and the truth resonates beyond age. “These have to be real people,” he says. “If the truth is more important in this moment than the joke, then let the joke go. Throw it away and nail the next one.”

And there’s a lot of truth that Amster hopes audiences will find in Morning After Grace. There are hard truths, such as about grief and loss, which he sees his friends experience more and more as they grow older together, but also inspiring truths, those that he sees as they laugh and do their best to stay young together too. “It’s never too late to find love, to find truth, to find goodness, to be alive,” says Amster. “This is a play that’s there for them.”

Morning After Grace is currently onstage at Asolo Repertory Theatre and runs through March 4.

Pictured: Jack Wetherall and Catherine Smitko in Asolo Rep's production of Morning After Grace. Photo by John Revisky.