What We Did Before Our Moth Days
Closing: May 24, 2026Buy Tickets to What We Did Before Our Moth Days
What We Did Before Our Moth Days Off-Broadway Tickets, News, Info & More
Greenwich House Theatre
27 Barrow St. New York, NY 10014
Set in an urban world of intelligent and somewhat gentle middle-class people, a father, mother, son, and the long-time mistress of the father tell the intimate story of their lives. Wallace Shawn, a student of morality whose plays have brought us frank truths about politics and sexuality, here takes on the subject of love – suffocating and freeing – and the kaleidoscopic journeys we make through remorse, sorrow, resentment, and joy. Mr. Shawn and Mr. Gregory have created a work that is as strange, and at times hilarious, as My Dinner with André.
What We Did Before Our Moth Days - Off-Broadway Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR What We Did Before Our Moth Days
Review: What We Did Before Our Moth Days at the Greenwich House Theater
7 / 10
I don’t know that the play ever really explains how these people came to be the people they are; Shawn isn’t all that interested in the causal chains of human relationships. He’s interested in secrets, the secrets we keep from others and for ourselves. And he’s interested in the moral compromises and choices we all make to live in a society: what we did before our moth days, after all, is our whole lives. What We Did Before Our Moth Days is, in a weird way, a kinder, gentler Wallace Shawn: there’s no searing indictment of society a la The Fever or subtle Nazi sympathies like Aunt Dan and Lemon or rounding up of intellectuals like The Designated Mourner. But even in that gentleness, there are constant flashes and flares of the darkness at the heart of people; of the ways our own self-interest blinds us to the needs and the humanity of others. In that way, it’s maximal Shawn.
What We Did Before Our Moth Days: Four People Live, Love and Die
9 / 10
Wallace Shawn offers a sorrowful story of estrangement and infidelity in his latest work, What We Did Before Our Moth Days. Closer to a spoken novella than a conventional play in its format, the drama is structured as more than two dozen interlocking monologues performed by four actors, who almost entirely speak directly to the audience rather than to each other. Hope Davis, Josh Hamilton, Maria Dizzia and John Early are the fine artists who sensitively relate Shawn’s woeful modern-day tale under the direction of Andre Gregory in the world premiere opening on Thursday at Greenwich House Theater.
Category
by Chloe Rabinowitz - April 2, 2026
With three hours’ notice, Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg stepped into Mr. Shawn’s What We Did Before Our Moth Days at the Greenwich House Theater. See a photo from curtain call!
by A.A. Cristi - April 1, 2026
Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg stepped in with three hours' notice for Hope Davis and Maria Dizzia, who are out due to illness, in WHAT WE DID BEFORE OUR MOTH DAYS at Greenwich House Theater on April 1 and April 2.
by Chloe Rabinowitz - March 13, 2026
Wallace Shawn’s What We Did Before Our Moth Days will be extended for a final two weeks. The production stars Hope Davis, Maria Dizzia, John Early, and Josh Hamilton.
by A.A. Cristi - March 5, 2026
The critics are weighing in on Wallace Shawn’s new play, What We Did Before Our Moth Days, directed by André Gregor, running now at the Greenwich House Theater (27 Barrow St). The production stars Hope Davis, Maria Dizzia, John Early, and Josh Hamilton. Read the reviews.
by Stephi Wild - February 17, 2026
Wallace Shawn’s new play, What We Did Before Our Moth Days, directed by André Gregory, will be extended for an additional two weeks through Sunday, May 10, at the Greenwich House Theater.
by Stephi Wild - September 9, 2025
Wallace Shawn will premiere his new play, What We Did Before Our Moth Days, directed by André Gregory, for a limited 12-week off-Broadway run at the Greenwich House Theater (27 Barrow St).
What We Did Before Our Moth Days History
Other Productions of What We Did Before Our Moth Days
| 2026 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
Videos