'A Complicated Hope' to kick off NMU's North Coast Theatre Festival

Posted: Jun 7, 2022 / 04:13 PM EDT

Updated: Jun 7, 2022 / 07:19 PM EDT

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WJMN) – The summer theatre season is here and Northern Michigan University is kicking off its North Coast Theatre Festival with its first show this week.

The first of the four-show festival is the world premiere of “A Complicated Hope” by John Mabey. “A Complicated Hope” is NMU’s Panowski Playwriting Award winner. The award is designed to encourage and stimulate artistic growth among educational and professional playwrights.

“The Panowski Playwrighting Award started in 1977, and we’ve had about 50 award winners now of that award,” said Director Paul Truckey. “It really was started to foster art and playwrighting and trying to get that out in the world. ‘A Complicated Hope’ is a very interesting piece. It’s a three-person play. It’s a play about family, it’s a play about finding family and it’s a play about finding yourself inside of one. It’s about a mother and a daughter and a stranger who oddly enough becomes family with them. But, I don’t want to give too much away at this moment.”

Marie and her daughter, Rose Marie, played by NMU sophomore Maya Moreau, have left adrift after their husband/father passes away, leaving a shocking secret behind him.

“I play…a very interesting character. I change my mind a lot about a lot of things and I go through a lot of transformation. The show is nonchronological and so you can really put all of these puzzle pieces together and watch something as beautiful as like development through childhood happens through the show. I think that’s really cool, I think that’s really special. It’s about growth I think,” said Moreau.

Below are “A Complicated Hope” showtimes: