The genesis of what you’ll see when you come to watch a performance of Talking with My Dad goes back to a warm March day in 1986. On that Easter Sunday so long ago, my father died of a heart attack while visiting my suburban Chicago home for Easter Sunday.
The shock of losing a loved one with the suddenness of that loss really never leaves you.
Rather you just gradually begin to accept it as part of your life.
One of the many changes it brought into my life was an awareness of heart disease in my family and a feeling that, sooner or later, the great killer would be stalking me as well.
That sooner or later happened in the summer of 2012. Twenty-six years after heart issues had killed my father, they came knocking at my door. For several weeks I found myself having difficulty breathing each morning on my walk to the office in Chicago’s Loop. I would arrive profusely sweating and tired.
I chalked it up to an extremely hot summer, as did those I mentioned it to. But it was more, much more and on Aug. 13, 2012 I had an angioplasty to open a severely blocked artery not far from my heart.
Coping with that near-tragedy led me to begin writing Talking with My Dad. The play is an attempt to come to terms with heart disease, with profound loss of a loved one, and with facing the prospect that life can end in an unexpected instant.
Anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one, or faced traumatic moments in their lives, will find a touchstone in this production.
We invite you to join us at one of our six productions of Talking with My Dad, Nov. 15-16 or Nov. 22-23. Click here to select a performance date and time and purchase your tickets.
John N. Frank