Whiskey Theatre Factory to Debut PARTY TO GRIEF This Valentine's Day Weekend

Party to Grief is produced by Whiskey Theatre Factory at Imagine Performing Arts Center in the Oviedo Mall on select dates: February 13, 14, 20, and 21, 2026.

The fully-staged show presents an original poem and five new plays written by all local and female playwrights, which include: Do You Remember? and Raise Your Glass (A Poem) by Jodi Antenor, Fragments of a Woman's Heart by Ashley Alonso, On Track and Party to Grief by Katie Thayer, and Remains by Bethany Dickens Assaf. Knowing the writers behind the text is especially important for Whiskey Theatre Factory's Artistic Director Max Pinsky. "Something really special about this show is that it is made up of scripts by the people who are so intimately involved in the history of what WTF is. In my first season as part of the leadership team, it just feels so right to honor those voices who paved the way for the company to be what it is now."

Housed in the familiarity of an everyday coffee shop, the ensemble cast moves from personal stories of mother and child to a humorous debate on a set of train tracks to the aftereffects of when tragedy rocks a polyamorous trio. Weaving from comedic highs to tragic lows, there is a strong throughline of how love guides people into and through loss, which proves to be particularly cathartic in the world today.

"An overall goal of mine is to give grief dignity in not rushing through it or trying to fix it," Glover emphasizes of her process with co-Assistant Directors Gabriella Headley and Jena Rashid. "We want to present the complex, the contradictory, the joyful, and the tender aspects of grief." The cast of seven is especially attuned to tackle these hard topics in the rehearsal room, having worked with a Wellness Coordinator when the process began in December to discover what grief is, its stages, and how to cope with the mental load of portraying characters enduring through such heaviness.