UNRAVELLED National Tour to Launch With East Coast Premiere at Penn Live Arts
The play explores frontotemporal dementia through the parallel lives of Anne Adams and Maurice Ravel.
The national tour of Jake Broder's UnRavelled will launch this fall with its East Coast premiere as part of the Penn Live Arts 2026-27 season. Performances will run October 8-11 at the Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia.
Created and written by Broder and directed by James Bonas, UnRavelled combines theatre, live music, science and visual art to explore the parallel lives of scientist-turned-painter Anne Adams and composer Maurice Ravel, both of whom were affected by frontotemporal dementia.
The production features a cast of 10 actors and musicians and stars Lucy Davenport, Andrew Borba, David Aaron Baker, Leo Marks and Tracey A. Leigh.
About UnRavelled
UnRavelled follows Adams, a gifted biologist who unexpectedly abandons her scientific career and becomes consumed by painting. She develops a particular fascination with Ravel's Boléro, creating artwork inspired by the composer's famous work.
As Adams' cognitive abilities decline, her artistic output flourishes, revealing unexpected connections among neurological disease, creativity and the work of Ravel, who experienced his own progressive neurological decline.
The production has received five Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award nominations, the LADCC Award for Streaming Design and the Beverly Hills Theater Guild Playwriting Award.
Its Philadelphia engagement is presented in partnership with Penn Medicine as part of the International Conference for Frontotemporal Dementias and is supported in part by the Penn Live Arts Accelerator Program.
Cast and Musicians
The cast features Lucy Davenport, Andrew Borba, David Aaron Baker, Leo Marks and Tracey A. Leigh.
The production's musicians are Rachel Iba on violin, Michelle Elliott Rearick on cello, Aron Kallay on keyboards, Nathaniel Edison on winds and Randy Gloss on percussion.
Creative Team
UnRavelled is created and written by Jake Broder and directed by James Bonas. Cath Brittan serves as producer, with Mark Grey as composer and sound designer.
The creative team also includes co-director Cydney Uffindell-Phillips, resident director Nina Goodheart, set designer Emma Kingsbury, lighting designer Masha Tsimring, video designer Adam Larsen, Costume Designer Molly Irelan, outreach director Samantha Rose Williams and production manager Kerstin Heinrich.
The production is powered by Producer Hub and presented in partnership with The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, The Kissick Family Foundation, UCSF Memory and Aging Center, Global Brain Health Institute, Lilly Pharmaceuticals and the Dana Foundation.
Performance Schedule
UnRavelled will play the Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center from October 8-11, 2026.
Performances are Thursday, October 8 at 7 p.m.; Friday, October 9 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, October 10 at 2 p.m.; and Sunday, October 11 at 3 p.m.
The October 8 performance is currently available exclusively to attendees of the International Conference for Frontotemporal Dementias.
Tickets for the remaining performances are available through Penn Live Arts.
About Jake Broder
Broder is a playwright, composer, actor and Senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute at UCSF and Trinity College Dublin. His experience as the 2019 Hellman Visiting Artist at UCSF led to the creation of UnRavelled, which premiered at The Wallis in 2025.
His theatrical work also includes Max & Willy's Last Laugh, co-written with Conor Duffy; Our American Hamlet; Sense of Decency; Miravel; Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara; and the solo show His Royal Hipness Lord Buckley.
As an actor, Broder's screen credits include The Patient, The Morning Show and Silicon Valley. His stage work includes playing Mozart in Amadeus, directed by Sir Peter Hall, as well as appearances in When Harry Met Sally and The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged).
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