Playwright Laura Darrell
A family at odds over the estate of their late patriarch is at the center of Laura Darrell’s new six-actor play The Will, getting a New York City staged reading Feb. 2 as the first of five new works in Ground UP Productions’ 2026 Winter Reading Series. Jenn Thompson directs a company that features Cass Morgan, William Parry, Jessica DiGianni, Stephanie Linas, Emily Bosco, Ground UP artistic director Kate Middleton, with producer/reader Josh Evans and stage manager Daniely Martins.
“The germ of the play is a personal situation that arose in my family,” Darrell told me. “A real-life estate disagreement forms the rough basis or inspiration. After speaking with friends, I realized similar situations are unfortunately abundant in our country. I bandaged some deep wounds through the construction of this piece. I imagined a world in which the family members got to really hash things out instead of handling everything through lawyers. Much more fun.”
Here’s how Ground UP bills The Will: “When a family loses its patriarch, what they inherit isn’t just money — it’s everything left unsaid. A year after their father’s death, Heather (Cass Morgan) is ready to settle his estate — until her brother Steve (William Parry) fiercely challenges both the will and the intentions behind it. As buried childhood wounds surface, their outspoken millennial children jump into the conflict, bringing their own generational baggage and ideological fire. What begins as a simple legal process unravels into a raw reckoning with loyalty, legacy, and the quiet fractures in an ordinary family.”
The free reading is at 7 PM Feb. 2 at A.R.T. NY, 520 8th Avenue (between 36th and 37th St.), third floor. A reservation is required, as this popular reading series often fills to capacity. RSVP here. Learn more about the 2026 Ground UP series at the Off-Broadway company’s website. Or check out my earlier piece about the 2026 series.
Cass Morgan plays Heather, who is at odds with her brother over her father’s estate.
“It’s an ensemble piece,” Darrell explained. “It’s ultimately about family and the complex dynamics found in most families. However, there is one central character who pops out maybe a little more than the others — the matriarch of the story, Martha. Martha and her brother Steven are at odds over their father’s estate. Martha’s daughter Jane — and Jane’s girlfriend, Taylor — are sucked into the conflict once Steven’s daughter, Lauren, inserts herself into the sibling rivalry. And then there’s Tash, Steven’s unfiltered girlfriend who tags along when Steven makes an unexpected entrance.”
Darrell, a Yarmouth, Maine native, set The Will in the interior and exterior of a family camp in Cushing, Maine, on the ocean. “The family camp is another character in the show,” she said. “It’s what brings the family together and what seems to be tearing them apart. It’s a gorgeous place filled with pain.”
Part of the tension in the play is generational, she shared: “There are generations of conflict. The Baby Boomers and Millennials take issue with different things, past, present and future. There are major ideological disagreements that diverge from the central conflict. So there’s a lot to create some juicy tension.”
Darrell, a busy actress who has been seen Off-Broadway, regionally and internationally, as well as in TV, film and the audiobook world, said that her acting career “gives me a certain amount of insight into character development, rhythm, subtext. I’ve seen successful collaborations between playwrights and directors, and then I’ve been in more tense rooms and learned what not to do, maybe. I really enjoy bringing a group of actors together and listening to them!”
Darrell is a graduate of the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, where she focused extensively on Shakespeare, and studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts before transferring to USC, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in Dramatic Arts.
How did she start writing plays?
Bill Parry plays Steve in the Ground UP reading series presentation of “The Will.”
“The pandemic gave me time to write,” Darrell said. “Sometimes I’m not sure if it would have happened if I hadn’t had time to marinate with my first piece for so long. So many drafts! Before then I thought — and still think — other playwrights are much smarter than me, so what am I doing trying to take up space as a playwright? Who do I think I am?!? And for a long time I convinced myself I had nothing interesting to say. A pandemic, and watching people die, and families fall apart made me change my mind, I guess.”
Darrell said she admires many playwrights, “especially the ones I’ve been able to see work up-close as an actor, such as Jon Marans, Greg Pierce, Adam Rapp, Matthew Cole Kelly and most recently Heather Christian, who crafts everything from music to book.” They are “fearless, smart writers who have inspired me to craft stories with what feels like deeply personal insights designed to make us question the status quo. How can we be better to each other as humans? How can we do better? How do I warn people away from unnecessary pain and get people to ask more questions proactively?”
In some ways, The Will shares DNA with Darrell’s earlier play, Oregon, which had separate developmental readings by Bespoke Plays; Music Theater of Connecticut; LTV Studios/The Playwrights’ Theatre of East Hampton in association with Robin Aren; and most recently in a co-presentation by New York Rep and Sea Dog Theater, directed by Jenn Thompson.
“Both are family dramas with comedy woven throughout,” she said. “And I think they both deal with death and legacy but perhaps in very different ways. Oregon is about a family confronting the end of their 88-year-old matriarch’s life, dealing with thoughts and questions around end-of-life care and medically assisted death. I’m very excited about Oregon’s future and I definitely think the two are related. Both are about family and how family can both fuel and drain us. Sometimes simultaneously.”
Ground UP Productions artistic director Kate Middleton plays Tash in “The Will.”
She added, “I’m really drawn to the idea of family, both inherited and chosen. How people become so incredibly important to us and how those relationships can be tested in different ways throughout our lives. My next idea is a big historical fiction piece, expanding out of the nuclear family drama and moving into more of a chosen family/greater community dramedy. I also have to incorporate comedy in some way because even the heaviest family dramas are often hilarious to me. Perhaps it’s a survival instinct inherited from my quirky but loving family.”
Darrell doesn’t pre-structure or meticulously map out her plays. She explained, “I’m often motivated by an idea or conflict and then I have to just start writing. Only God knows what! I often can’t see or predict the path of my play more than a page or so ahead. They kind of unravel before me and then I write a lot in the edits. It’s like a trust fall. And I love it. Acting is fun because it’s like being an archeologist, digging up what the meaning is for me. Writing is like being a surveyor or geographer. I’m creating the land I’m charting!”
The Will had an informal living room/Zoom reading in 2025 with Nashville artists.
“The actors were very affirming and brought up a lot of great questions that helped me enrich a lot of the relationships and deepen some backstories before reaching this moment,” she said. “I’m hoping Ground UP will be a great listening opportunity as well as an opportunity to continue to fine-tune and strengthen the piece.”
*
I was honored to have two of my plays developed in past Ground UP reading series: the romantic vignette comedy Ten Minutes On a Bench which has gone on to productions, and the chewy family drama Tennessee Williams Drank Here, for which I’m seeking further development opportunities.
