21 New Messages & Up The Hill

DOUBLE FEATURE!

21 New Messages by Stefan Feuerherdt​

Directed by Chris Harder, featuring Val Landrum

In this intimate immersive play, a woman returns to her mother’s home to pack after an unexpected tragedy – and discovers a trove of unheard messages on an old telephone answering machine. In a unique twist, it's audience members who read the messages aloud, becoming storytellers to the actor on stage. As the messages "play," they reveal glimpses of the woman and her mother’s life and their complicated bond, and the woman is forced to confront her own patterns and choices. 
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A poignant exploration of generational echoes,emotional inheritance and community, the show premiered at Portland’s Fertile Ground Festival in April 2025 and will receive an international debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2025.

Up the Hill by Val Landrum
It’s been thirty years since Emily lost her life to childbirth. It’s been three years since George and her son have visited. She’s now the only one left in the cemetery at the top of the hill, with the exception of a supernatural being named S.M. Simeon who is trying to save her from a fate worse than death. When George finally does show up, his memory has left him and Emily must now get him to remember it all as the pocket watch ticks away. Based loosely on Thorton Wilder’s Our Town and the events that happened in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire in 1913, Up the Hill was first workshopped this past January 2025 through PDX Playwrights’ Scenario @ CoHo Theatre.