The eldest of the four and the only one who ever visited the cabin. Recently divorced, mother of ten-year-old Lily, Maggie manages grief the way she manages everything: clipboard, color-coded Post-its, a system for other people's belongings. She arrives wearing her father Bob's oversized cardigan and spends the night discovering how much of her own story was sorted into the wrong box. The role requires an actor who can hold rigid control for an hour and then let it fail precisely — the play's central revelation lands on her.

Maggie's younger brother, an academic who stopped his dissertation six years ago and has been "rethinking the argument" ever since. Simon deflects with irony — he philosophizes, he narrates, he names the squirrel — and observes his family from ten thousand feet up because the view down there costs too much. The comic engine of the play for most of the night, he also carries its most generous moment: when the revelation breaks, he's the one who finds the exact right thing to say. The role requires precise comic timing and the ability to drop it completely, twice.

Carol's older brother, an electrician because his father decided he'd be one. Divorced, father of a young son he hasn't called in two months, Danny arrives with whiskey in a thermos and a chip he's carried since sixth grade — first chair trumpet, an empty seat in the audience. He's the one who insists on opening the box: reckless with other people's secrets because he's certain the truth can't hurt worse than the pretending did. He's wrong, and then he grows. The role requires an actor who can play volatility with a wound underneath — the anger is real, but so is the phone call to his son at dawn.

The youngest of the four and the family's designated fixer — she arrives with her grandmother's chicken divan because "it fixes everything," and spends the night learning what it can't. Carol was seven when the divorce split the household and Danny chose their mother; she's been smiling and smoothing casserole lids ever since, holding things together and getting called "pretending" for her trouble. She's also the play's sharpest observer: the character most often underestimated, and the one who lands the truest blows. The role requires warmth that reads as genuine rather than doormat — Carol's peacekeeping is a survival skill with anger underneath it, and the actor has to let both show.