Local Bedford playwright's A FINAL TOAST to open off-Broadway May 17

Jana Robbins, the well-known Broadway actress and producer, plays a powerful Jewish mother with early stage dementia in "A Final Toast" by Michele A Miller. The play explores the complex misunderstandings, secrets, and tensions in families when daughters interact with their aging mothers. Ms. Miller is known for plays and screenplays which disarm dark subjects with comedy. Renaissance Now Theatre & Film, a producer of new works, films and innovative interpretations of classics, will present the play's world premiere run May 16 to 26 at Chain Theatre, 312 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor. The four-character play also features Jolie Curtsinger, Joy Franz and Sachi Parker. Kathy Curtiss directs.

"A Final Toast" takes us into the complex, intertwined lives of two older women who are helped by their adult daughters to clear out their homes before moving to a Senior Living Center. Blanche (Jana Robbins), a vibrant, resilient and domineering secular Jewish woman who must rely on her adult daughter, Ella (Jolie Curtsinger), to dispose of her house and estate along with Alice (Sachi Parker), a professional home organizer. The wrinkle is that Alice's mother Carol (Joy Franz) is heading for the same senior living facility. Once in their new home, with the pandemic raging, the two elderly women find themselves across the hall, only to uncover an inauspicious encounter they had years before--one with longstanding consequences for their future lives, their relationships, their families and ultimately each other.

Tickets can be purchased at www.rennaisancenow.com