By Carmin Caterina
It’s remarkable how much real life can fit into fifteen minutes. Love and Foreclosure, written by Laura DeBar and directed by Khrystina Pryani, centers around a couple who have built their life from nothing and are now quietly facing the gut-wrenching possibility of losing their home. When the husband’s wealthy family arrives for Sunday dinner, what reveals itself is much more than just finances.
Presented as part of Block 4 of the Gene Frankel Theatre Festival Summer 2026, the short play manages to capture (in an incredibly small amount of time) dynamics that will feel relatable to so many families: the golden child and the black sheep, the sibling who followed the expected path versus the one who chose the road less traveled, the complicated ways parents support their adult children, and the quiet imbalance that can exist within a family even when no one explicitly names it.
What I really loved was that the characters felt truly authentic. There were struggles and resentments underneath the conversation, but there was also the familiarity of people who have known one another their entire lives, and the roles they find themselves pigeonholed into in ways that only family is capable of doing. The cast: Alana Daley, Dean Kapica, Angelo Amato, Khrystina Pryani and Chaz McCormack seamlessly brings that history to life in a way that made the relationships feel immediately believable and sometimes even surprisingly likable.
I completely resonated with this idea of witnessing a couple who had chosen to build something for themselves without relying on familial help and the complicated feelings that arise when they are confronted with family members whose paths and circumstances who now look very inevitably different from their own.
And beneath all these themes, a question revealed itself: What happens when choosing your own path comes with a price?
That question is something I think a lot of people will relate to – I certainly did. So much of life is spent measuring ourselves against where we thought we would be on some arbitrary timeline, where others expected us to be, or where the people around us seem to have arrived with an ease that eludes us. Love and Foreclosure explores that tension without needing an elaborate backstory to make us understand it.
I won’t reveal where the evening ultimately goes, but Love and Foreclosure proves that a play doesn’t need a long running time to say something meaningful. In roughly fifteen minutes, it gives us a surprisingly familiar portrait of family, expectations, independence, struggle, what it means to build a life on your own terms, and what you have to let go of in order to achieve that.
And just when you think you understand where this family’s story is headed based on their dynamics, the play ends on a cliffhanger that opens the door to an entirely new chapter. It left me wanting to know what happens next, which may be one of the greatest compliments you can give a fifteen-minute play. These weren’t simply characters filling familiar family roles; they felt like people you might actually know or see yourself in, and by the time the lights went down, I wasn’t ready to leave them.
Love and Foreclosure – Written by Laura DeBar; Directed by Khrystina Pryani.
WITH: Alana Daley, Dean Kapica, Angelo Amato, Khrystina Pryani and Chaz McCormack. Presented as part of Block 4 of the Gene Frankel Theatre Festival Summer 2026, at the Gene Frankel Theatre. July 27–August 16, 2026. Running time: approximately 15 minutes.
