Bozeman Actors Theatre, in cooperation with the Verge Theater, presented Montana’s first fully staged production of Marjorie Prime in February and March of 2017. The critically acclaimed play by Jordan Harrison had completed its successful run Off Broadway in 2015 and was a finalist for that year’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Our production was directed by Tonya Andrews and starred Dee Dee Van Zyl, Ryan Lawrence Flynn, Cara Wilder, and Gordon Carpenter.

Set in the unspecified but oddly familiar future, the story takes place in the household of an average middle-aged couple, Tess and Jon, played by Wilder and Carpenter, who share their home with Tess’s 85-year-old mother, Marjorie (Van Zyl). Also present is Walter (Flynn), a thirtysomething holographic representation, or “prime,” of Marjorie’s late husband, programmed to collect and sort Marjorie’s fading memories. With gentle humor and subtle yet poignant insight, the play confronts issues of aging, death, memory loss and identity.