A Curated Exit at The NEST

After touring through the Winnipeg and Edmonton Fringe Festivals this summer, Vancouver's Shot in the Dark Productions brings A Curated Exit home for four performances at The NEST Theatre on Granville Island. Written by Kristy Woollam and directed by Richard White, A Curated Exit is a two-actor dark comedy about grief, technology, love, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the incomprehensible.

Zoe has built a business around making death more aesthetically pleasing. She sells technology that replaces the messy physical realities of dying with a sanitized, carefully designed experience, allowing clients to control the final memories they leave behind. Then Zoe's husband Steve dies unexpectedly, and her carefully controlled life starts to fall apart.

As Zoe struggles to maintain control, the play intersperses tender fragments of her life with Steve with the hours immediately following his death. These memories gradually reveal the reason behind Zoe’s obsession with perfect endings, and what she must confront before she can let Steve go.

Blending irreverent comedy with an intimate story of love and loss, the play explores what happens when we use technology to try and control the messiest parts of life and death. Along the way there is an AI assistant with questionable people skills, a raccoon attack involving Cheetos, and a dead husband who refuses to stay out of the conversation.

“I wrote this play after losing my mother, my grandfather, and a close friend all in the space of a few months,” says 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.”

A Curated Exit stars Kristy Woollam as Zoe and Devon Sands as Steve and BOB, with direction, sound and lighting design by Richard White. “A smart, witty play with no small serving of artistic gumption… The sincerity and affection at the heart of this play is what makes it all work.” - Gabriel Munro.

Showtimes: Thursday, September 24 – 7:30 pm Friday, September 25 – 7:30 pm Saturday, September 26 – 7:30 pm Sunday, September 27 – 7:30 pm

Location: The NEST Theatre, 1398 Cartwright St., Granville Island, Vancouver