Pictured: Morgan Lavenstein and Jacob Fallon in The Burdens. Photo courtesy of The Urbanite Theatre.

Over the next week, head down to the Rosemary District to check out Urbanite Theatre’s The Burdens, which has seen its run extended to December 4th. The play, written by Matt Schatz and directed by Urbanite Theatre’s co-artistic director Brendan Ragan, is a dark comedy that follows two siblings, Mordy and Jane, that hatch a hairbrained plan to relieve their family of their emotionally and financially taxing grandfather. The production, which opened in late October, is the first of four mainstage productions in Urbanite’s 2022-23 season, which is titled Heredity.

“This season is all about reconnecting with family or navigating difficulty inside family,” says Ragan. “The theme ran parallel to realizing that several of the plays on our short list contained those elements – as we were choosing this play and that play before you knew it, we’d selected a series of plays that all had somewhat of a connection, but also complimented each other really well because they were very different stories. Once we had identified that theme of heredity, it was like a lightbulb going off for us in our season selection process.”

The Burdens, which stars Morgan Lavenstien and Jacob Fallen, takes a comedic look at how we treat our elders – even when they may not always deserve the respect that’s given to them.

“What’s great is the whole entire play is told via text messages and there’s no projections or voice overs or things like that – the actors are going to be able to say things that they normally wouldn’t because you can kind of toy with saying more via text. It’s funny, it’s silly, but it also has some poignancy because it really thinks about what we owe our elders even when they’re bad people. How do you deal with someone who’s quite literally an emotional and financial burden on your mother, who's making her life actively worse?” says Ragan.

October 21st - December 4th, 1487 2nd Street, Sarasota, 941-321-1397.

Pictured: Morgan Lavenstein and Jacob Fallon in The Burdens. Photo courtesy of The Urbanite Theatre.