A CURATED EXIT To Take The Stage At The NEST Theatre

What if you could design your final moments, right down to the smallest detail? What would you choose? And who would you become in the process?

Following performances at the 2026 Winnipeg and Edmonton Fringe Festivals, Vancouver's Shot in the Dark Productions brings A Curated Exit, a darkly funny and unsettling new play by Kristy Woollam, home to The NEST Theatre on Granville Island, September 24-27.

A Curated Exit follows Zoe, a funeral director obsessed with creating flawless final moments. Zoe sells a device that transforms death into a carefully designed experience, from a simple final message to a fully immersive holographic simulation. After all, life can be messy, but death doesn't have to be.

When Zoe's husband Steve dies unexpectedly, she is forced to confront a reality she can no longer manage or contain. Moving between the hours after his death and fragments of their life together, the play gradually reveals the fractures beneath the perfect life Zoe thought she had built.

Blending sharp, irreverent humour with moments of tenderness, A Curated Exit explores grief, memory, technology, love, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the incomprehensible.

Edmonton reviewer Gabriel Munro called the production "a smart, witty play with no small serving of artistic gumption," adding that "the sincerity and affection at the heart of this play is what makes it all work."

"I wrote this play after losing my mother, my grandfather, and a dear friend all in the space of a few months," says playwright and performer Kristy Woollam. "What I learned is that in the darkest, messiest moments, there is also unexpected beauty, humour, and so much love. This play challenges us to face death head on and find the meaning buried in the chaos."

By turns irreverent and deeply intimate, A Curated Exit ultimately asks what remains when the systems we build to protect ourselves from loss fall away.

Get Vancouver Emails & Offers

Get the latest news, discounts & more