Pacific Theatre Presents MOTHER TERESA IS DEAD, 3/1-23

"I just knew that I had to get down on my knees and help someone not die." What's more important: making sure your child has the best life possible, or making sure another child has a chance to live? In Bleeding Heart Collective's guest production of Mother Teresa is Dead by Helen Edmundson, that is the question that crosses Pacific Theatre's stage when a young mother abandons husband and son without a word, turning up among the street children in the slums of India.

Immediately after giving birth to her first child, Jane is inundated with pleas from charities around the world reminding her that while she cradles her sleeping child in her arms, other mothers will bury theirs. In secret, Jane makes a decision: her son will be okay without her, these other children will not. The question remains: is she right?

Mother Teresa is Dead addresses questions previously unasked in the theatre: "Philanthropy is a really boring word, and that's why they don't make shows about it," says Artistic Director Ron Reed, "but actually, 'to give or not to give' is a fundamental question that eats up most of us." It's this question that Helen Edmundson examines in its depth through one family's experience straddling the divide between caring for themselves and caring for the other.

Mother Teresa is Dead is produced by Bleeding Heart Collective, made up of director Evan Frayne (The Verona Project) and actors Julie McIsaac (The Spitfire Grill), Katharine Venour (My Name is Asher Lev), Kayvon Kelly (The Graduate), and Sebastian Kroon (The Busy World is Hushed). Light, set, and costume design by Florence Barrett. Costume assistant Catrina Lewis. Stage managed by Cara Cunningham.