“Grace and Glorie” is a play by Tom Ziegler that debuted in 1991. It is about a 90-year-old woman, with cancer who has checked herself out of the hospital and has gone home to die alone in her cottage in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Soon, Gloria, a volunteer hospice worker, with her own issues, arrives from New York. This is their story. When it played off-Broadway, it featured Estelle Parsons and Lucy Arnaz. Now, it is playing at Act II Playhouse in Ambler, featuring the multi-talented Penelope Reed as Grace. I can’t imagine anyone better in this poignant and powerful story, laced with humor throughout.
How does one create a comedy about dying of cancer? How does one make surviving the deaths of a woman’s five children over a lifetime, bearable? How can a New Yorker with a graduate degree appeal to an old woman in the hills of Virginia who can’t even read? Ziegler has done it all, and Director Patricia G. Sabato has masterfully put it together for us all to enjoy.
It is 1990,.and Grace Stiles (Penelope Reed) is in bed in the cottage, down from the main house. Her family once owned all those hundreds of acres with apple orchards and chickens and crops, but she had been pressured to sell. She cannot fathom that hospice worker, Gloria Whitmore (Genevieve Perrier), volunteers to help people die. She doesn’t want any help, and she makes that clear- repeatedly. Although she hasn’t been in a church for decades, she still believes in God, something that Glorie (that’s what Grace calls her) has let go of. In time, we learn of Glorie’s story and why she and her husband moved to Virginia, a sad tale.
Grace hasn’t been out of bed since she got home, and she desperately needs to pee. Glorie insists she use the soup tureen, a piece left by Grace’s mother-in-law, who she hated. While she gives in then, she won’t give in by taking morphine to ease her pain. And so begins their days together as the women get to know each other and their limits. From squawking chickens to rats, to the foods they eat,, to the noisy bull dozers outside that are clearing the land, Grace is constantly in Glorie’s face.
What is the best way to die? We even wonder at one point if Glorie also wants to die. Perrier as Gloire,is outstanding in portraying the foil for the outrageous Grace. And I learned that after stage managing for 28 years (13 at Act II), this is Sabato’s directorial debut. What an outstanding job she and the others have done in putting together this classic!
“Grace & Glorie” by Tom Zeigler” at Act II Playhouse, 56 E. Butler Avenue., Ambler, PA 19002, 215-654-0200, act2.org thru March 2, 2025
Philadelphia Theater Reviews by Frank Burd 
What a fantastic OPENING NIGHT!! From the moment the scene opened until the closing words from Grace and Gloria the audience (and me) were enthralled….Penny and Gloria were sooo believable and the entire production was beautifully produced by Pat and felt like I was part of the play. Be sure to call for tickets for the next play “DIAL M FOR MURDER” before that is also ‘SOLD OUT’
LikeLike