Regional Premiere – RVArt Review

*A Regional Premiere*

Growing Up is Messy…Especially When You’re Summoning the Dead

A Theater Review by Julinda D. Lewis

Presented by 5^th Wall Theatre

At: The Basement, 300 E. Broad St., RVA 23219

Performances: October 16 – November 9, 2025

Ticket Prices: $30/Adults, $15/Students

Tickets & Info: https://www.5thwalltheatre.org/ or email info@5thwalltheatre.org

5^th Wall Theatre opened its 2025/2026 season in its new, permanent home, the former Basement, now 5^th Wall at The Basement or 5^th Wall/Basement. In alignment with 5^th Wall Theatre’s mission “to provide insights into the human condition through theatrical expression,” the season opener provided new dimensions to the theatrical experience. Alexis Scheer’s Our Dear Dead Drug Lord is a dark comedy about 4 Miami teenaged girls, members of the Dead Leaders Club, who meet in a tree house where they hope to summon the spirit of Pablo Escobar.

In case that name sounds familiar, yes, “that” Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug trafficker and leader of the infamous Medellín Cartel. In addition to being one of the world’s most notorious narco-terrorists, Escobar was also known as a philanthropist who built housing complexes, parks, football stadiums, hospitals, schools, and churches in some of Colombia’s poorest neighborhoods. So, what about Escobar appeals to a club (or gang?) of teen girls in Miami?

It could be the allure of the illicit, the Robin Hood element of Escobar’s philanthropy, the need to replace the powerlessness of being young and female with the trappings of power, or a misplaced coping mechanism to deal with their own personal traumas. More than likely, it is some combination of these things, along with the normal teenaged tendency to rebel.

In an interview for TheaterMania.com (September 22, 2019), the author explains that Our Dear Dead Drug Lord was created as a way for her to connect with her own roots. The Miami-born, Columbian and Jewish writer’s mother emigrated from Medellín in the 1970s. “The Colombian cartels and Pablo Escobar is a weird part of my family mythology that I don’t understand, because I feel so distant from it. So that’s where that came from. I think it’s a very American play, and part of my experience as an American is trying to touch upon the generation or two before me that was outside of this country and what they fled to get here.” (https://www.theatermania.com/news/alexis-scheer-gives-us-the-dope-on-her-play-our-dear-dead-drug-lord_89801/)

Okay. So, there’s that. But there’s also witchcraft, a Ouija board, a séance, and a special dance choreographed in honor of . There’s a diverse cast, each with a heavy burden of her own. Pipe, the club’s president, is an upper-class Cuban-American and carries the burden of grief from her younger sister’s death. Pipe’s bestie, Squeeze, is Puerto Rican-Haitian who is allergic to cats. Her father committed suicide. Zoom, Pipe’s Jewish-American neighbor, is the baby of the group, and always trying to keep up. Perhaps in an effort to over-compensate for her youth and lower status, she is also coping with the possibility of a teen pregnancy – which factors in the play’s climax. And then there’s Kit, a Columbian-American newcomer with a mysterious past that makes the other girls speculate that she may be the actual daughter of their hero, Pablo Escobar.

The intersection of this combined chaos is where these girls meet to create a sacred space, a sense of community – perhaps much like the community some young people find in gang life. Director Kaitlin Paige Longoria describes is as “an incantation, a call to the ancestors.” In her notes, Longoria writes, “It lives in that delicate space between grief and rebirth, between the ache of what’s been lost and the hope of what might still be found.”

It is in this spirit that these girls, four young women on the cusp of adulthood, seek freedom, power, and self-worth. It is in this spirit that they chant the mantra, “I will not be good. I will be loud, loud, loud. I will make the world in my image and take what I mine!”

Kylee Márquez-Downie (Pipe), Marya Brice (Squeeze), Eva Linder (Zoom), and Mary Kalinowski (Kit) form a solid ensemble, intense and darkly humorous. The séance is unsettling and the sacrifice is positively horrific and scary. It’s the kind of cast where each member has a distinct role, but it’s almost impossible to single out anyone because each plays an integral part in the whole.

Joey Luck composed an original score using the cast’s own voices and William Luther created a uniquely isolated and compact tree house environment where all the action takes place.

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord is anything but predictable. It is weird, dark, disturbing, and it resonates with the truth that society is failing our young women and if we don’t do something to shape and direct them, they will find someone – or something – to fill that void.

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Julinda D. Lewis is a dancer, teacher, and writer who was born in Brooklyn, NY and now lives in Eastern Henrico County. When not writing about theater, she teaches dance history at VCU and low impact dance fitness classes to seasoned movers like herself and occasionally performs. Julinda was recently awarded the Dean’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Award 2023-24 Academic Year by VCU School of the Arts and the 2025 Pioneer Award in Dance Ministry by Transformation International Worship Ministries, Newport News, VA.

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OUR DEAR DEAD DRUG LORD

A Play by Alexis Scheer

Directed by Kaitlin Paige Longoria

CAST

Kylee Márquez-Downie ………. Pipe

Eva Linder ………. Zoom

Marya Brice ………. Squeeze

Mary Kalinowski ………. Kit

UNDERSTUDIES

Natalie Tubia ………. u/s for Pipe & Kit

Kylie Metheny ………. u/s for Zoom

Jada Paul ………. u/s for Squeeze

FEATURING

DJ Cummings Herdoiza ………. Pablo

Fio Lo Presti ………. Pipe’s Little Sister

PRODUCTION TEAM

Directed ………. Kaitlin Paige Longoria

Scenic Design ………. William Luther

Lighting Design ………. Corrine Manderino

Sound Design ………. Joey Luck

Costume Design ………. Emily Andrew Mateos

Choreography ………. Kayce Sullivan & Jamie Hollman

Intimacy Choreography ….. Kerrigan Sullivan

Stage Management ……… Megan Wave

Technical Direction ………. Chris Foote

Photography ………. @ivyandlacephoto

Performance Schedule:

Thursday, Friday, Saturday 7:30PM

Saturday, Sunday 2:30PM

Tickets: $30/Adult; $15/Student

Run Time: 95 minutes, no intermission

The World Premiere of Our Dear Dead Drug Lord was presented in September 2019 by WP Theater and Second Stage Theater, NYC, NY.

CONTENT WARNING: This play contains strong language, sexual content, depictions of drug use, and scenes of violence. The play also includes references to suicide, sexual assault, and other sensitive subject matter.

Marya Brice, Mary Kalinowski, Kylee Marquez-Downie, Eva Linder

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“I gave you the things in me I didn’t even know I had.”

Presented by: Richmond Triangle Players

At: Richmond Triangle Players at the Robert B. Moss Theatre, 1300 Altamont Avenue, RVA 23220

Performances: September 10 – October 4, 2025

Ticket Prices: $15-$50

Info: (804) 346-8113 or rtriangle.org

A Theater Review by Julinda D. Lewis

Conversations with Mother is a poignant semi-autobiographical play by Matthew Lombardo that explores the dynamics of a relationship between a fiercely loving and protective mother and her gay son. The story unfolds primarily through their conversations, with the aid of projected subtitles and grainy home movies. Conversations with Mother reveals and celebrates the complexities of love, generational differences, and the challenges of navigating the passing phases of five decades of a shared life.

As in his play Who’s Holiday, his comedy about the adult Cindy Lou Who that has also graced the RTP stage, Lombardo masterfully balances comedy with real life – intense and unadorned, sometimes snot-nosed ugly.

The son, Bobby Collavecchio played by Daniel Daigle, becomes a successful playwright, almost in spite of the roadblocks he erects in his own path. He grapples with bad relationships and writer’s block, drug addiction, and low self-esteem. The mother, Maria Collavecchio, played by Sarah Heifetz, is a strong-willed and traditional Italian matriarch (although I must confess that when she first began talking, I thought we were dealing with a Jewish mother – same character, different recipes…). A running line is, “tell me the truth and I won’t get mad.” Watching Heifetz’s face trying to master this enormous lie is one of the highlights of the play, which runs about 75 minutes with no intermission.

Bobby and Maria’s dialogues oscillate between humor and deep emotion, reflecting their shared history, familial bonds, and sometimes conflicting perspectives. Maria is not above saying “No,” you can’t come home from camp early to her pre-adolescent son or showing up unannounced at her adult son’s New York apartment, ready to battle his abusive boyfriend. When he finally gets a play produced on Broadway, Maria sits quietly holding his hand, until she can’t contain herself and leaps from her seat screaming with mama bear pride. At one point when Bobby asks, “Do you still love me?” Maria answers truthfully, “Not at this moment.” But love is enduring. A mother’s love – this mother’s love – never fails. And there is hope and the essence of something just out of reach that we’re all seeking underlying every scene of Conversations with Mother.

“Did you get a job yet?”

Why can’t you ever meet a nice boy?

“You know what the Germans are famous for? Baking people – like crescent rolls!”

If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?

If your phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.

“If Christ had chosen better friends, He wouldn’t have died so young!”

“THAT’S MY KID UP THERE!!!”

As the mother reflects on her life and values, the son confronts his own choices and the realities of adulthood until, one day, the roles are reversed. Then, it’s Maria saying she has something to tell him, and making him promise he won’t get mad.

Throughout the play, Lombardo captures the essence of the mother-son dynamic, highlighting themes of memory, regret, and acceptance, but most of all, love. The interplay of comedy and drama serves to create a heartfelt narrative that resonates with anyone who has experienced similar familial ties – and perhaps even with those who have not. The play ultimately underscores the enduring nature of love and the bittersweet reality of growing older. I wasn’t ready for the depth of emotion, from laughing out loud to tears streaming down my face at the end.

Daigle masterfully navigated the decades from the pre-adolescent Bobby to the mature adult facing the same shenanigans from his own son that he once showered upon his own mother. Heifetz captures the range of emotions of Bobby’s mother with amazing grace and agility – she’s outrageous without ever becoming a caricature.

This is a work that does not need a lot of props or decor. The set is a simple background of window frames, a screen for projecting captions and video, and two chairs the actors move about as they pass from one decade to another, one geographical location to another (primarily New York and Connecticut).

Kudos to the creative team, starting with director Deejay Gray (I could feel his hand in Daigle’s portrayal of Bobby). Luke Newsome’s hair and makeup were awesome, with a special nod to Mama Maria’s wigs and another hat tip to Amber Marie Martinez’ costumes (and the unseen hands that helped make all those lightning-fast changes). Maria’s outfits were so authentic…Lucien Restivo’s projections (assuming that includes the video work), Weston Corey’s lighting design, and Kelsey Cordrey’s subtle but effective sound design were all perfection.

Conversations with Mother is a perfect example of a play that stands on the merit of its words and the actors and creative team who curate them into a production that creates beautiful, memorable theater.

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