In this theater seven years ago, Birthday Candles had its first encounter with the public.  Since then, it’s been produced in Buenos Aires, Stockholm, Chicago, Riga, Tel Aviv, New York City, and Berlin. And now it has returned home. 

Home because the play was born here, without hyperbole. After the first workshop showing, an audience member asked me onstage, “What was so difficult about Ernestine’s life?” (Ernestine is the name of the main character, but it's in the program you're holding so that's not much of a spoiler). Out loud, I can't remember my reply, but inside, I was like, “Oh shit, she's right.” 

Writing a play is, in essence, building a simple machine whose effect can be repeated ad infinitum, like a ladder or a corkscrew. I couldn’t be more thrilled that Chautauqua Theater Company’s production of Birthday Candles is the first I'll have seen with which I have had no direct involvement and, therefore, a measure of the efficacy of the machine invented here.    

And to that audience member who asked the seminal question in the life of this play, I hope you’re satisfied with my response.