THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE to Open as Immersive Bar Production

In November 2026, The Feast plans to premiere its immersive production of William Saroyan's slice-of-life dramedy The Time of Your Life. The production will set the play immersively in a bar, inviting the audience to watch the play as if they're barflies just like the characters in Saroyan's 1930s San Francisco dive. The play builds on The Feast's history producing site-specific works, including the recent hit The Wealth Walk, 2023's Champagne + Sodomy, 2021's Marisol, and 2018's Blood Wedding. 

“The Time of Your Life features a rich man trying to do good, a sex worker trying to evade a vice cop, a society couple slumming it with the riff-raff, a bored housewife looking for something to do, an old cowboy spinning tales that probably didn't happen, a teenager trying desperately to get laid, and the worst stand-up comic in history,” says Director Ryan Purcell. “The play is about people trying to live a life worth living. It's both a raucous and a personal story—people are singing and dancing in a honky tonk while the Great Depression rages outside.” The Feast will bring their signature style to the work, reimagining it into an event that makes the audience central to the action. “You will feel like you are in the bar with these characters,” says production designer An-lin Dauber. “You'll be immersed in the world of this play….down to the napkins on the counter and the glassware.” In signature Feast style, the performance will also feature some of Seattle's best actors, Amelio García, Yeonshin Kim, MJ Sieber, Amy Thone, Bradley Wrenn, and R. Hamilton Wright. “You'll see virtuosic performances, with a cast of eight playing more than 30 characters,” says Purcell. 

The Feast also plans to deconstruct the play, bringing an experimental angle to the naturalist work. “For parts of the piece, you'll be following the story like a normal play,” says Purcell. “But in other moments, the audience will meander amongst multiple scenes, witnessing different stories happening simultaneously.” The production aims to push back against linear narrative, “optimization,” and productivity. “This is maybe the messiest and most sprawling American masterpiece,” says Purcell. “It's about how we see the beauty in moments and people. For it to work, it has to shake up the world a little bit. You have to get too close, be in the bar, have a drink with a friend. The play creates the most profound, funny, and moving world from the scraps of language and characters that we always seem to miss. I knew we had to build a space for intimacy and subjectivity, for folks to look and listen differently.”

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