The Lifespan of a Fact at Parker Players Theater Company

The Lifespan of a Fact, by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell, is based on the real-life clash between essayist John D'Agata and fact-checker Jim Fingal, which began as a routine magazine assignment verifying an essay about Las Vegas and a teenage suicide, and spiraled into a debate about accuracy, authorship, and truth in storytelling. In the play, Fingal interrogates every detail while D'Agata defends every creative choice, with an editor caught between them as the stakes escalate. The central question is not simply what is true, but what kind of truth matters — whether it's the verifiable fact or the emotional resonance that makes a story meaningful. Parker Players Theater Company stages the production in an intimate setting, placing audiences directly inside the argument and leaving them to wrestle with the answers themselves.