GRIEF HOTEL

GRIEF HOTEL

returns in partnership with New Georges!

Two Drama League Award noms, including Best Production of a Play!

“Exquisitely weightless: Liza Birkenmeier’s covertly romantic flotsam bobs along for a swift seventy minutes, funny and graceful… The director, Tara Ahmadinejad, presides over a tremendous cast” — Helen Shaw, The New Yorker

“…a sneaky marvel. Rather than handing you tidy packages of exposition, Grief Hotel trusts you to fall into an already rushing river, find a branch, and hang on. This requires a period of biorhythmic adjustment at the start. Don’t flail or clench too tightly: Just let it carry you for a bit…. Grief Hotel heads in too wonderful a direction to spoil the particulars, but its emotional power — and the thing that necessitates and elevates it specifically as a piece of theater — is the way in which we bear witness to the eventual merging of islands.” — Sara Holdren, VULTURE

“***** … a gorgeously impressionistic picture of a group of acquaintances in loneliness, contemplation, and despair” — Melissa Rose Bernardo, New York Stage Review

“An expansive resort of intrigue and insight… where there is always something new to discover. There’s a tiny mitochondrion of optimism powering this play about grief and disconnection” — Zachary Stewart, Theatermania

Clubbed Thumb’s
GRIEF HOTEL
in partnership with New Georges
in residency at The Public

by Liza Birkenmeier
directed by Tara Ahmadinejad

Loss is fast, but grief is slow. Aunt Bobbi’s going to try to make everyone feel better, even though her parties are cursed.

with Susan Blommaert, Bruce McKenzie, Nadine Malouf, Ana Nogueira, Susannah Perkins and Naren Weiss

Scenic Design by dots
Costume Design by Mel Ng
Lighting Design by Masha Tsimring
Sound Design & Composition by Jordan McCree
Stage Manager Allison Raynes

WHY THIS PARTNERSHIP?  In summer 2023, we saw GRIEF HOTEL by Liza Birkenmeier, directed by Tara Ahmadinejad, in Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks. It was a beautiful production of an absolutely stunning play, funny and fiercely moving.

We were delighted. We also felt proud. Because we just love Liza and Tara—whom we’ve supported and championed individually for years, as participants in our core development programs and through all kinds of production.

Now here they were collaborating, and the mischievous specificity we’d seen spring up in their separate work over time merged into a mutual vision.  (A collaboration now honored with a 2024 OBIE Award Special Citation!)

So when Clubbed Thumb started talking about bringing GRIEF HOTEL back for a longer run, we hopped on board! And now have the pleasure of inviting YOU. To join ALL of us at The Public Theater for one big fun exciting takes-a-village celebration of this swell play.

It’s our mission—frankly it’s our bliss—to build long-running relationships with artists, to stand with them as they experiment, make work, enter more visible phases of their careers. Partnering with our close comrades at Clubbed Thumb on GRIEF HOTEL’s return makes us really happy.

MEET THE LEAD ARTISTS