OUR LOVING COMPANIONS to Have World Premiere at The Marsh
Pamela Hollings directs the choose-your-own-adventure production, staged with Grief Dialogues at Marsh venues in San Francisco and Berkeley.
A new immersive theater experience celebrating the beautiful bond between people and their pets will capture hearts at both The Marsh San Francisco and The Marsh Berkeley this October with the world premiere of Our Loving Companions directed by Pamela Hollings.
Throughout the course of 90 minutes, audiences will have the opportunity to choose their own adventure of plays that highlight the laughter, devotion, inexplicable joy, and grief that defines one's relationships with animal companions. Presented in collaboration with Grief Dialogues, the theater and arts organization that uses storytelling to change the conversation around death, dying, and loss, Our Loving Companions started with a nationwide competition, from which 14 plays and poems were selected and crafted into this immersive storytelling experience at The Marsh.
Our Loving Companions will be presented 7:30pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 3:00pm Sundays October 15-18, 2026 at The Marsh San Francisco (1062 Valencia Street) and October 22-25, 2026 at The Marsh Berkeley (2120 Allston Way). A portion of the proceeds for Our Loving Companions will be donated to San Francisco Aid for Animals. Attendees are encouraged to bring a small picture of a dear pet for a collective art installation. For tickets ($35 general admission, $50 and $100 reserved, plus a $3 convenience fee per ticket) or more information the public may visit themarsh.org.
"Half of American households share their lives with a pet, yet when that pet dies, most of us grieve alone. Pet loss remains one of the most common and least acknowledged griefs we experience," said The Marsh Artistic/Executive Director Stephanie Weisman. "Our Loving Companions began when veterinarian and playwright Alan Stewart approached Grief Dialogues Founder and Executive Director Elizabeth Coplan with an idea and now stories of how our pets touch us beyond their paws can now be experienced on stage at The Marsh."
Our Loving Companions is the result of a shared artistic vision between Grief Dialogues founder Elizabeth Coplan and co-producer and playwright Alan Stewart. Recognizing the need for an animal-centered immersive theater experience, Coplan envisioned a space that honors the distinct and deeply personal nature of the creatures who share one's homes, routines, and unconditional love. Stewart, a producer, playwright, Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, and former trustee of San Francisco's Magic Theatre, brings a distinctive artistic voice shaped by his first career as a veterinary internist and a lifelong belief in the human-animal bond as a language of the heart. Together with the creative team, they have created Our Loving Companions, which invites audiences not only to witness grief, but to experience it in a way that clarifies, deepens, and transforms.
The plays performed for Our Loving Companions will include A Little Birdie Told Me by Marilyn Anderson, The Bridge by Jay Cross, Must Love Pitbulls by Jenny Mead, Dog Dreams by Jeffrey Fisher Smith, Tomorrow by Alan Stewart, Rollover by Alan Stewart, and What We Know by Stephanie Weisman as well as short plays Saturday, Duboce Park by Allan Baker, Ellie's Goodbye by Leslie Corn, A Good Dog by Anya Martin, Like a Dog by Anya Martin, Roll Over, a monologue from the cat's point of view by Tommy, Outside of the Box by Emily Turner, and For The Love of Buddy by Dyanna Morrison White. Most performances are followed by a facilitated discussion with pet grief professionals for audience members interested. Our Loving Companions production team also includes Michael Bud (creative producer, director of design), Elizabeth Coplan (co-producer), Dani Davis (consulting director), Alan Stewart (co-producer), and Anna Takayo Walden (associate director).
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Pamela Hollings (Director, she/they) is a theatermaker, working as a director, dramaturg, educator, actor, deviser and writer. Her career has focused on developing new work; working with playwrights as both director and dramaturg and as a devisor of new work, often site-specific. She is an ensemble member of Aviva Arts (formerly foolsFURY) where most recently they served as a co-writer, dramaturg and performer for Burning Wild a climate catastrophe devised piece performed outdoors in both Sonoma County and San Francisco. She was the curation & education director at 3Girls Theatre, and the board chair (2013-2021), as well as an ensemble member (2018-2022) of foolsFURY Theater and the former artistic managing director of both The Yat/Bentley Centre for Performance, SF Bay Area and Soup Kitchen Theatre, Melbourne, Australia. They trained in Theatre Direction at Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). Hollings is also a breath practitioner and voice teacher working at the intersection of theatre, education, ritual and somatic wellness.
ABOUT GRIEF DIALOGUES
At Grief Dialogues, theatre is used as the artistic expression most likely to reach an audience on a personal level. Theatre and art are the ultimate empathy generators. The productions allow individuals and as a society, to face the untold, unheard, and often misunderstood tales of life and death. Celebrating 10 years, Grief Dialogues believes that learning is centered by engaging in theatre. The main goal is to feel what another is feeling, whether it's an actor on the stage, or a member of the audience sitting in a dark theatre.A
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