Theater For The New City Dream Up Festival 9 September 2025
In Search of “True Love” was a remarkably refreshing piece of theatre. It was bare. It was simple. No flashy lights, no soundtrack, no audio tricks, no set: just one woman in a black box theatre bravely standing centre stage and baring her soul. And it all felt so genuine that I had to ask the creator of this show if she was even working off of a script at all.
This show was written, directed, and performed by one person — Ayaka Yamamoto. And it could not have been easy to do because everything came down to her. With no lights changing, no scenery, no other actors to work off of — it was just her talking with the audience. She is a Japanese immigrant who is living in New York City because theatre is the dream. Like many of us, it’s not the path that her parents would have chosen for her — she even has a mother who would love for her to come back to Japan and enter into an arranged marriage. But that isn’t the type of “true love” that she wants.
What is true love? That is what this show asks the audience and that is what the one character (who is the actor) is asking herself. This show is an autobiographical tale about finding that magical thing that is referred to as “true love”. But it begins with the heartbreak.
As love often does, it ends with you hurt and depressed and feeling lonely. Sometimes you may find yourself spending days on end in bed because you just can’t bear to face the morning that day. It is easy for people to say for you to move on or that there is someone else out there — but to actually get back to dating after a break up is hard. You were just vulnerable and open with someone, only for it to end in heartbreak. And then society expects you to just do it all over again despite that fact that you’re now scared to be that vulnerable again.
So you take pleasure in the little things. For Ayaka Yamamoto that little thing was a specific type of Japanese stand up comedy called “Manzai” that she would watch on YouTube. This is a two person stand up routine and quite honestly, it reminded me of British sketch comedy — I could see Monty Python sketches that were very similar to this idea. You have one character asking for advice and the other giving them very normal advice, which the first person then takes very literally and to the extreme, resulting in a hilariously awkward situation. And this comedy was the simple small thing that made getting out of bed again each morning a possibility.
In the next moment, we are with Ayaka on the last day that she is working as a babysitter for a family. She has grown to love this little three year old boy that she has come to know over the past six months, but it’s now time for her to move on to a new job. And this is when she finally realises what “true love” is.
The thing with being a babysitter is that you know you’re going to build a bond with that child, but you don’t necessarily expect that child to grow the same bonds with you because you don’t expect them to necessarily remember things in the long term. You expect, as the adult, to walk away hurt from that job because you know going into it that you’re going to have to say goodbye to the kids one day. You rarely expect the kid to hurt when the babysitter says goodbye because you expect the child to forget you soon. Which in and of itself, hurts — but it only hurts you, not the child.
So imagine the surprise Ayaka felt when the child, a three year old child, expressed sadness at her leaving. She felt needed for the first time in a long time. But more importantly she felt happy. And that’s when the point of this show becomes painfully clear and unfortunately it is a lesson that can be hard to learn.
You simply cannot have “true love” and expect that to mean happiness. You need the happiness first. In fact, happiness, I would argue is “true love” because until you have happiness alone, you’ll never have “true love” because you won’t be happy. And unfortunately, I think people forget too frequently that life isn’t a Disney movie or a Broadway musical — you have to find happiness with yourself before you’ll ever have happiness in any sort of relationship. But it’s a lesson that we all must face eventually.
I am not sure what I expected from this show, honestly. I went into it knowing just the basics — a satirical comedy starring the characters of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin faking the moon landing.
What I got was something right out of Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s handbook and I cannot be more pleased about that!
This show was incredibly self aware, tongue‐in‐cheek, silly, ridiculous, over the top, and I loved every minute of it. It’s clever.
The basic premise of the show is simple: No man has ever walked on the moon, but the Space Race is well on its way and the United States government is desperate to win against Russia — even if it has no idea how. And that is why when two young aspiring actors, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (played by Collins Dennis and Teddy Fischer, respectively), go into an audition for the roles of “Astronaut #1 and Astronaut #2″ for a new Hollywood movie. Only to be told once filming has wrapped that neither of them could continue their acting career because they both signed a contract (which neither of them had read) stating that they must take on the roles of astronaut for the rest of their lives. This leads Neil to fall into a life of depression, desperate to just be an actor — to explore new roles and characters, and into a life of drinking his worries away. Buzz, being more content with the lie, has leaned into his new “job” as an astronaut and has even begun a political career.
Flyer for the Show
The play itself begins at a press conference with the character, who is cleverly named “Mr. Redacted” (played by Christopher Hanks), telling the American public about NASA’s newest mission — the first “manned” mission to Mars! And by “manned”, he means, “Chimpanzeed” because that’s the pilot — a chimpanzee named Mr. Bananas.
Standing next to Mr. Redacted is Buzz Aldrin, who is standing tall, proud, just right for the part and Neil Armstrong… who is clearly drunk. In fact, he is so drunk that he gets into a drunken fight with Mr. Bananas (and loses) prompting the government to place him into a rehab facility — and that is where much of the show takes place.
Other settings that this show has include Buzz Aldrin and his caddy on the golf course and Mr. Redacted at his barbers’ shop — where he just wants his sideburns trimmed to exactly 8 cm.
But it’s really the other characters in this show that allows for all of the ridiculous hijinks to ensue.
There is the character called Nevada (played by Nicole Ponce) who is introduced to the audience as another client in the rehab facility that Neil is sent to. Nevada is a smart character — she’s witty, dynamic, believable, coy, mysterious. And her character, in this silly show, only gets more complex from there. Ponce did an absolutely wonderful job in portraying a character that is so layered and she did so with conviction. Not to mention that the chemistry between the characters of Nevada and Neil must be on point for this show to work and it very much was; it felt genuine. Two angry, smart people having no choice but to participate in childlike forms of therapy (an example of this being the characters forced to talk through sock puppets at the rehab facility).
The other actor that absolutely must mentioned is Patrick Walsh, who played the “Ensemble”. As in, he was Buzz’s golf caddy, he was Thomas — the guy who works at the rehab, he was Thomas’ mother, he was Mr. Bananas, he was a reporter, he was Sam the barber, and he was the literal moon! And he nailed it. Walsh even delivers a wonderfully meta monologue explaining what the character of “Ensemble” is and how it still an amazing acting gig!
While this show is about a conspiracy theory — it is also very much just about acting. And not just acting, but how easily an actor can be taken advantage of and the dangers of not reading the contracts you sign. It deals with putting on a role and living with it for so long that you find yourself believing you are that character. This show deals with what it takes to even make a film or put on a production. And this show deals with what it really means to be an actor, a writer, a creative person.
And this is all shown by essentially putting on a movie inside of the show. You see the character development as each character in the show evolves, you see the literal script writing process, you see the rehearsal, and you see the final product.
This show comes down to detail, detail, detail. From the second the audience starts to enter the theatre, they toss their ticket into an astronaut’s helmet. The music playing before the show and during scene changes included songs such as “Dancing In The Moonlight” by Toploader, “Fly Me To The Moon” by Frank Sinatra, and “Rocket Man” by Elton John.
An Attendant holds an astronaut helmet to collect tickets.
And of course, this show delves into what it means to blindly trust — whether that is a person, a contract, a situation, even the government. In a show about government conspiracy, you cannot ignore the parallels to our modern political policies and how much the American people not only have no choice but to just believe what we are told by the government, but even more so, how it is expected upon Americans that we know and accept that our government will lie to us. That knowledge and acceptance that our government will lie to us is just part of being an American citizen.
And this is beautifully shown in a very simple, yet effective way when one of the characters receives an injury to their ear resulting in them wearing a bandage over his ear for the rest of the show. It would be hard to watch a character wearing a bandage on an injured ear and not see the connection to a certain conspiracy theory making its rounds on social media regarding an injury that was allegedly received by the President back in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And what a beautiful, smart way to connect a show about conspiracy to our modern audiences.
Well done.
Theater For The New CityThis show was part of the Dream Up Festival
This show centres around The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, also known as The Rogers Commission. The entire show takes place within the walls of one room and the audience becomes more than just spectators — we become the members of the gallery/members of the commission that is being appealed to as Dr. William R. Graham, the acting administration for NASA (played by Thomas M. Copeland) tries to convince Dr. Richard P. Feynman, a commission member (played by Chris Jaymes) that there was no way to see this accident coming. The head of this commission is Mr. William P. Rogers (played by Paul Albe).
I think the easiest way to explain this commission, in its simplest form, is to compare it to a criminal trial. Dr. Graham would be the defendant, Dr. Feynman the prosecutor, Mr. Rogers the judge, and the audience would be the members of the gallery.
The show opens with audio clips taking the audience through the entirety of the day that the shuttle exploded. The shuttle launches, the excitement in people’s voices, the news casters announcing the launch, then the panic, the screams of terror, the horror, the news stations reporting that the shuttle exploded, and finally President Ronald Reagan addressing the American public to assure everyone that we will find out what went wrong so that it never happens again.
And it is here that we meet the characters in the show. Dr. Graham is a physicist who is the current acting administrator of NASA. That means that he and his team are the people who do the mathematical equations needed to figure out the risk of catastrophic failure for the space launches. It is worth noting that while Dr. Graham is not the person who is directly doing these math equations, he is the person who signs off on the work and is ultimately responsible in making sure that all factors have been taken into account when putting together these equations and that the math is correct.
Mr. Rogers is the appointed chairman of the Rogers Commission. He was appointed by President Reagan and was a former Secretary of the State and a former Attorney General. He is the man that must give the results of this commission to the President (and therefore may face any wrath that Reagan may have if the results do not shine a positive light on NASA).
Dr. Feynman is a theoretical physicist and was assigned to be a member of the Rogers Commission. He is the voice of reason in this show (and historically) as he is the only one who can see beyond the mathematical equations that are supposed to guarantee safety and understand that lives aren’t promised by an equation because there are always outside factors that an equation cannot account for.
The staging of this show is simple, yet effective. The vast majority of the show consists of the three actors sitting behind desks. However, that is the only type of staging that would realistically make any sort of sense for the setting. There were two beautiful moments that broke from this: the first is when Dr. Feynman shows everyone at the Rogers Commission the risk factor report that breaks down what was used to determine if any components of the solid rocket boosters needed to be replaced (this is vital because a faulty O‐ring was found to be the cause of the explosion and with there being a massive oversight in how risk factors were calculated — mainly the effects of how cold weather changes the ability of the O‐ring to function properly — the whole disaster could have been avoided). The second time comes when Dr. Feynman performs a simple, elementary school level, science experiment to prove his point as the commission progresses. Dr. Feynman (as well as all of the characters on stage) has a glass of water in front of him, with a clear water pitcher next to it, full of ice water. So it makes for a stunning visual for Dr. Feynman to pull an actual O‐ring out of his pocket and show everyone how easily it can be bent and contorted into different shapes. He then fills his glass with water (critically, there was no ice in the pitcher in front of him), walks across the stage to Dr. Graham and very awkwardly, but also with conviction reaches his hand into Dr. Graham’s pitcher of ice water and grabs a handful of ice, which he places into his cup of water. Dr. Feynman then places the O‐ring into the cup of ice water for maybe 30 seconds before being able to show everyone at the commission how the O‐ring, in such a short period of time, became brittle, unable to change shape and now only able to snap if it were forced to try to expand. It was an unseasonably cold day in Florida the morning of the Challenger launch. The effects of cold temperature on the O‐rings was something that should have been and could have easily been tested. But it wasn’t.
Which brings us the point of this show — human error is inevitable. Even if humans create machines to do everything for us, it still is only as good as the person who programmed it. It also takes other humans to catch the errors of others. A machine simply cannot reliably take in all potential contributing factors that is needed for operations that can be life or death. So while it is impossible to remove human error altogether, it’s also impossible to exist without humans playing a part in everything. So who should take the blame when things go wrong? Whether it’s humans wrongly assuming they’ve covered all of their bases when putting together a program or a risk factor assessment or simply not checking the work of those below you and still allowing that work to make it through and into the hands of the bosses — it’s the fault of someone and people should be held accountable.
One thing that struck me throughout this show was just how little of a factor it was that there was a teacher on board of that shuttle. In fact, it is only briefly mentioned at all and that’s in one line spoken by Dr. Feynman in which he is admonishing the choice of President Reagan and NASA to even send a teacher to space because it was really done as a publicity stunt to improve relations with the general American public. And that’s horrible — but it isn’t the main point of this show. In the grand scheme of things, her being a teacher and not an astronaut is inconsequential because there were so many times that a human could have stepped in and stopped the launch if only someone had done more than just assume that what was already being done was correct.
The icing on the cake for this show is the press kit. The detail put into making “confidential files” from NASA showing the thought processes and ideas of the different characters (and from the characters’ own perspectives) was simply beautiful.
All in all, this show is deeply thought provoking. I did not expect to be enthralled by this story because honestly, it occurred three years before I was born. I know about it, I learned about it in school, I have even seen the video footage. But I never truly understood how big of a tragedy this was before seeing One In Twenty‐Five. And it is not because of the loss of life — it is because the loss of life could have so easily been avoided.
I find it interesting that this show comes down to the number “4%”. When something goes wrong once out of every twenty‐five times it is tried — that is something going wrong 4% of the time. And 4% sounds like a really low percentage. But once it is laid out as being once out of every 25 attempts that there is catastrophic failure… suddenly 4% is huge.
Breaking The Trust is a dark comedy revolving around four sisters, their recently deceased brother, and the many secrets that both hold this family together and rip it apart at the seams.
Jeff Prewitt on the Poster for Breaking The Trust
The show opens with three of the sisters already at their deceased brother’s home. There is Martha (played by Jane Seaman) who is, at least on the surface, the greediest of the sisters. From very early on all the way until the end of Act I — money and the potential inheritance seems to be what she cares about the most. She is also an entrepreneur and is currently making doggy clothing.
We also meet the character of Donna (played by Deborah Unger) — she is perhaps the wisest of the siblings, at least when it comes to being able to figure out if a person is truly a good human or not. And even more importantly, she is able to accept people for who they are, even if who they are isn’t good.
And in this scene, we also meet Lorna (played by Shauna Bloom) who is the youngest member of their immediate family. She is, as a person, lost and is constantly seeking something — anything — to help make life worth living. She desperately wants to see the good in everyone and struggles to understand not only “how” a person could be bad, but also cannot wrap her mind around the “why” — what could possibly cause a person, any person, to choose to repeatedly do bad things? Lorna also has an abusive husband named Jesse, who is never seen on stage, but who is referenced numerous times.
And finally, there is one more character in the opening scene — his name is Ronnie and he is their deceased brother. He was cremated after his death (a decision that causes an uproar among the sisters) and sits in an urn on the coffee table.
The first scene with the three sisters (who are waiting for the fourth one to arrive) sets the tone for rest of the show. In this scene we get the first inkling that Ronnie was not the stand up gentleman that Lorna so desperately wants him to be. In fact, it is revealed very early on that Ronnie was physically abusive to his ex girlfriend and even killed his ex’s prized horse. Of course, this was old news for Donna and Martha, but for Lorna — this was shocking new information about her brother… a brother that she says, over and over, made it clear that she was his favourite sister, that loved her.
It is also during this time that the audience, along with two out of the three sisters, learn just how wealthy their brother had become — though none are sure on exactly how he became so rich. It is revealed that he had a large number of Krugerrand — a gold coin produced in South Africa and the amount that Ronnie obtained comes to be estimated to be worth around 4 million American dollars.
The Show’s Program
And in true sibling fashion — they wonder how he got the money. Was he in a gang? Did he steal it? Was he murdered over the money? No, no, he got drunk and drove his truck into a telephone pole which killed him.
At this point in the show, the audience finds out that when the sister’s father died, he left every single penny and object to Ronnie and nothing was left for any of his daughters. This, of course means that any and all inheritance left over from their parents, is part of what would be passed along to each of the four sisters. Ronnie, however, has put everything he has into a trust and his lawyer, Jordan Gibbons will reveal who gets what after the funeral. It’s important to note that the only sister who starts the show with the knowledge of this trust is Donna, who is the trustee. She does not know the contents of the trust nor how much is in it, but she signed all of the papers to make her the trustee.
In fact, in a heartbreaking admission — Lorna admits to being in a lot of debt since her husband is unable to maintain a job and therefore she is the sole provider (while she is losing herself mentally and spiritually), so the inheritance money could not have come at a better time. And as children, Ronnie swore to her that he would take care of her. So to Lorna, this is perhaps Ronnie’s way of fulfilling that childhood promise.
Finally, the fourth sister enters the stage. Her name is Nora (played by Wynne Anders) and is the eldest of the sisters. She is a cancer survivor, and is married to a man who goes by the name Perez (played by Michael Gnat) — who has joined her for the funeral.
Perez is a bleeding heart retired college professor who feels forever indebted to the woman who died while saving his life while he was living in Africa — a woman whom he had an affair with and who he clearly loves even though she is gone. Nora is concerned that Perez has Alzheimer’s disease. A very notable aspect of the character of Perez is his insistence in stating the truth — regardless of it is stings or not.
The next character to enter is Byron (played by Jeff Prewitt) — he is Nora and Perez’s son, who was just released on parole from prison after stealing from the art museum that he used to work at. Both of the characters of Perez and Byron are very intelligent characters and both actors — Gnat and Prewitt, respectively, did an excellent job in overlaying the humour, with the wit, and with the subtle jabs that a character of that intelligence needs to be able to dish out.
Headshots of the cast; Shauna Bloom, Jane Seaman, Wynne Anders, Deborah Unger, Michael Gnat, and Jeff Prewitt
Now that all of the cast of character have arrived — the true hijinks begin. The sisters have a conversation about the fact that Donna had Ronnie cremated because apparently Ronnie wouldn’t have like that. In fact, Lorna points out that when they were growing up, Ronnie used to tell her about a nightmare he had about being cremating and his ashes thrown into a river.
As the show progresses, the audience (and the character of Lorna) learn the truth about Ronnie — SPOILERS WARNING:
It is revealed that Ronnie did more than kill his ex girlfriend’s horse — he also killed Lorna’s puppy when she was a child. And the entire family — the other three sisters, Ronnie himself, and even their parents all lied to Lorna and insisted that her dog was killed in a hit and run. It is also revealed that Ronnie had only left anything of value to two out of his four sisters. Donna and Nora are both set to receive 1/4th of the inheritance each, with the rest being donated to a church — Ronnie was far from a religious man and it is clear that him leaving money to a church was solely for the purpose of screwing over two of his sisters.
Learning all of this is something that Lorna simply cannot fathom or comprehend. By the plays end, Lorna announces that by coming to the home for the funeral, she has learned that her whole life has been a lie. The brother that she thought loved her really just liked to use her as a punching bag. She has learned that her beloved dog didn’t die in an accident, but was intentionally killed by her own brother. And perhaps worst of all, everyone but her has known this entire time.
This revelation of who Ronnie truly was, breaks Lorna, who leaves before the funeral can take place. But before she does, when only her and Perez are around to see it — she makes Ronnie’s dream come true — she flushes his ashes down the toilet.
It is also revealed, but only to the character of Perez that Byron ended up doing prison time because he had teamed up with Ronnie to steal an original Picasso painting and they were going to sell it. However, Ronnie told Byron that the buyers tricked him, showed up with guns and not money, and took the painting. However, Byron has figured out the truth — Ronnie did sell the painting and he lied to Byron about it so that Ronnie could keep all of the money for himself. By the shows end, Byron — being rather intelligent — figures out the combination to Ronnie’s secret safe, steals the gold Krugerrand, and drives away before the funeral takes place.
And the only other character who knows about it all is Perez who is now tasked with making a very hard decision. Should he tell the truth, the thing he believes in, even though he knows it will destroy any sense of family and trust in one other that the three remaining sister have or should he stay quiet, let the funeral proceed as normal, never reveal that the urn no longer has any ashes in it and never reveal that Byron ran away with all of the fortune — perhaps letting the blame fall on Ronnie (after all, none of the sisters actually know how the gold was acquired or even have actually seen the gold — maybe they’ll think there simply never was any gold), in hopes that the remaining sisters can salvage any sort of resemblance to a family again?
On the surface, this is a show about grief, family, and greed. But when you get into the more layered aspects, it’s really a show about trust, promises, the need to see people for what they are, the ability to let go, and even the importance of a little white lie at times versus the truth. After all, sometimes the truth doesn’t help anyone or it can cause great harm (while also not changing anything for the better in the long run). Sometimes the truth just makes no difference in the grand scheme of things.
I did find, negatively, that some actors had better control of the stage than others. The three stand out actors in this show were Deborah Unger (who played Donna), Michael Gnat (who played Perez), and Jeff Prewitt (who played Byron).
Unger had to portray a hard, yet very soft character. She needed to be able to be stern and level headed, but not just mean and unlikeable. In fact, her acting reminded me a lot of Kathy Bates, so naturally I am curious to see this actor play a villainous character — I think it would be fun for her to perform and for the audience to watch.
Gnat’s character has to be likeable even though he has stepped out on his marriage. The audience must even potentially pity him at some points. But then at other points, he’s the life of the party, purposefully pushing people’s buttons, and enjoying a good laugh. Perez, as a character, is hugely motivated by the necessity for the truth to be known — which is why it is such a treat to see this character being forced to make a decision: let things just be or ruin the happy facade by explaining the truths.
Prewitt may not have had the most emotionally deep character to portray, but he had command of the stage and was able to grab the eyes of the audience regardless of what else was happening. This was important because especially by Act II, Byron says a lot with body language and facial expressions and very little with actual words.
I must also commend Shauna Bloom (who played Lorna). Her character spent a lot of time being clueless, so when she finally breaks down, it’s quite nice to see the physical and emotional aspects of the character shift and turn into someone who can be dark and angry.
Speaking of Act II — there was no reason for it beyond perhaps the actors safety. Act I ends with a jar full of pennies being opened and the pennies flung about the stage. And then there is a five minute “Intermission”, which I suspect was really only there so that the pennies would be swept off of the stage. However, I found breaking for only five minutes did nothing but distract from the show and mess up the flow/pacing.
Outside of the pennies being a potential slipping hazard — there is no reason (that I can think of) not to just leave them on the stage, wherever they land, for the remainder of the show. The characters are only at this home due to the funeral. And while (most) of the characters can see Ronnie for the man he really was — they are still grieving. It’s still a loss, an unexpected one at that. And that still hurts. So I don’t think the characters would care enough to clean the pennies up. Conversely, if the pennies are being removed out of safety concerns, perhaps it would work better to have one of the sister (most likely Donna) sweep up the pennies, while berating her sister for throwing them.
This show has a lot of really good, really thought provoking sections, but outside of the three actors really spotlighted above, it just didn’t feel genuine. I just didn’t feel the chemistry between the sisters that I so desperately wanted too. The moments that felt like genuine family arguments or even genuine laughter at past memories felt fleeting and few and far between. And that’s a shame because with the right chemistry, this could be a wonderful deep dive on the inner workings of not just the human mind and what makes it change, but also on the human psyche and how far a person can be pushed before their morals and values are put into question, and furthermore, when is it okay to break our own morals and values. Is it okay to do be immoral for the greater good?
Theater For The New CityThis show was part of the Dream Up Festival
