Family Game Night

by Peter Kennedy

On the third Saturday evening of every month, the Morton family gathers together for their traditional board game night at Mom and Dad's house. Tonight, however, will be a little different than the usual round of Monopoly or Clue. Andrea, unbeknownst to her aging parents, husband Jimmy, teenaged daughter Chloe, or snarky brother Max, has brought along a new game designed to get her repressed family talking...

On the third Saturday evening of every month, the Morton family gathers together for their traditional board game night at Mom and Dad's house. Tonight, however, will be a little different than the usual round of Monopoly or Clue. Andrea, unbeknownst to her aging parents, husband Jimmy, teenaged daughter Chloe, or snarky brother Max, has brought along a new game designed to get her repressed family talking about issues they'd rather avoid. It's called "We're All Going to Die (Eventually)."

What starts out as a mildly irritating board game featuring glitter and Grim Reaper hand puppets suddenly turns darker as three generations of the Morton family struggle with articulating wildly different views of their individual end of life (and after) choices. In poignant flash forwards, we begin to see the endgame of how those choices will eventually play out.

Family Game Night was produced by the Provincetown, MA Theater Foundation as a benefit reading starring Kathleen Turner in 2021.

It was also included in the 2020 New Works Virtual Festival, a Broadway all-star fundraiser to benefit the Actors' Fund. The online reading cast included Tony nominees Carmen Cusack, Richard Kind, and Liz Larsen.

In addition, Family Game Night was selected as a semifinalist for the 2020 Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference and as a finalist for Bloomington Playwrights Project's Reva Shiner Comedy Award in 2020. It was produced in 2018 in Northampton, MA as a staged reading for Play by Play: A Festival of New Works sponsored by The Northampton Playwrights Lab and The Massachusetts Cultural Council.

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Family Game Night

Recommended by

  • Talya Kingston: Family Game Night

    A beautifully rendered family that anyone will relate to. This play begins with an absurdist premise, moves at times though farce, but ultimately ends (as all life does) in all too realistic tragedy. The characters and their relationships to each other are realistic and most funny when pushed to the extremes of life and death. This one act play made me laugh hard but also left me teary and - most importantly - contemplating my own end of life wishes.

    A beautifully rendered family that anyone will relate to. This play begins with an absurdist premise, moves at times though farce, but ultimately ends (as all life does) in all too realistic tragedy. The characters and their relationships to each other are realistic and most funny when pushed to the extremes of life and death. This one act play made me laugh hard but also left me teary and - most importantly - contemplating my own end of life wishes.

Character Information

  • MOM
  • DAD
  • MAX
    son
  • ANDREA
    daughter
  • CHLOE
    granddaughter
  • JIMMY
    son-in-law
  • CORY
    doctor

Development History

  • Type Reading, Organization Provincetown, MA Theater fundraiser with Kathleen Turner, Year 2021
  • Type Reading, Organization New Works Virtual Festival, a Broadway all-star fundraiser for the Actors' Fund with Carmen Cusack, Richard Kind, and Liz Larsen, Year 2020
  • Type Reading, Organization Northampton Playwrights Lab and Mass Cultural Council, Year 2018

Awards

  • Bonnie and Terry Burman New Play Award
    Barrington Stage Company
    Semi-Finalist
    2020
  • New American Voices Playwriting Festival
    The Landing Theatre Company of Houston
    Semi-Finalist
    2020
  • Reva Shiner Comedy Award
    Bloomington Playwrights Project
    Finalist
    2020
  • Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference
    Eugene O'Neill Theater Center
    Semi-Finalist
    2020