Kayenta Arts’ workshop production of The Caregiver’s Guide is more than an evening at the theater. This is an invitation into the living, breathing process of how a play becomes itself.
Written by Jami Brandli and directed by Rob Goodman, this heart-wrenching and surprisingly comedic new work runs February 19–28, 2026 at the Center for the Arts at Kayenta. Developed in part through the Kayenta Arts New Play Lab, the production represents a rare opportunity for audiences to witness a play mid-evolution: nurtured and crafted beyond a staged reading, yet still open to discovery.
One Family’s Story of Memory, Fear, and Fierce Love
At the heart of The Caregiver’s Guide is a family reckoning with a devastating inheritance: when a stand-up comedian returns home and reveals he carries the early-onset Alzheimer’s gene, his family must confront not only the specter of the disease, but their own anxieties about control, responsibility, and what it truly means to care for someone who resists being cared for.
Brandli’s script deftly balances humor and heartbreak. Her dialogue crackles with wit, essential when a main character is a comedian, yet it never sidesteps the emotional gravity of the subject. With touches of magical realism woven into the narrative, the play suggests that memory itself can be both fragile and mythic.
Performances Rooted in Authenticity
The cast embraces the workshop nature of the piece while delivering fully realized performances. Lizzy Kimball as older sister Dawn and Jacqueline Misaye as younger sister April bring nuance and emotional clarity to two women navigating anticipatory grief. Their chemistry feels lived-in: arguments land sharply, but so do moments of shared tenderness. Both performers capture the exhausting push-and-pull between independence and obligation that defines so many caregiving relationships.
Jared Shipley’s portrayal of the comedian brother, Zac, is especially compelling, balancing bravado with vulnerability while delivering sharp gallows humor. His comedic timing provides welcome levity, and his quieter moments allow the fear beneath the jokes to surface with devastating honesty.
Dean Jones and Kelly Bellini round out the family with beautifully grounded performances as the parents. Jones’ steady, capable father becomes the emotional ballast of the household, striving to hold his family together while meeting each child’s needs in distinctly personal ways. Bellini is enchanting as the family’s choreographer—a presence who quite literally and metaphorically dances in and out of the lives and memories of those she loves. Her performance carries both grace and poignancy, embodying the fragility of memory while radiating warmth.
Together, the ensemble creates characters who are richly dimensional, each embodying a distinct relationship to the disease and a different response to loving someone who faces an untimely demise.
Direction that Honors the Process
Rob Goodman, known for championing new work and for founding Milwaukee’s First Stage, directs with a clear respect for the script’s developmental stage. Rather than over-polishing, Goodman allows space for discovery. Scenes breathe. Emotional beats are given time to unfold. The pacing supports both the humor and the more meditative elements of the story.
As a workshop production, the staging is intentionally streamlined, focusing attention on text and performance rather than spectacle. This creative restraint proves effective; audiences are invited to lean into the storytelling itself.
What Is the Kayenta New Play Lab?
To fully appreciate The Caregiver’s Guide, it helps to understand the ecosystem that nurtured it.
Established in 2023, the Kayenta New Play Lab is a structured development program supporting six playwrights each year. The process includes a preliminary table read, dramaturgical feedback, a five-day writing residency, and three days of rehearsal with guest directors and actors. Each project culminates in public staged readings, after which playwrights receive additional feedback from artists and audiences alike. At season’s end, a community panel selects one Lab play for full production in a future season.
In other words, audiences are not passive observers; they are collaborators in the artistic process.
The Caregiver’s Guide itself was first introduced as a staged reading in August 2024 through the Lab before advancing to this workshop production. Seeing its growth offers a tangible example of the Lab’s impact: the story feels more dimensional, the character arcs more honed, yet the spirit of exploration remains intact.
Don’t Miss It!
The Caregiver’s Guide is tender without being sentimental, funny without diminishing its stakes, and courageous in its confrontation of memory loss and mortality. More importantly, it reminds us that caregiving is not a tidy narrative; it is messy, frustrating, loving, and deeply human.
This workshop production succeeds not because it presents a finished product, but because it allows us to witness transformation in the characters, in the story, and in the art form itself.
For audiences willing to engage not only with the play but with the process, this is theater at its most intimate and alive.
Center for the Arts at Kayenta presents The Caregiver’s Guide, by Jami Brandli
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater, 881 Coyote Gulch Cir, Ivins, UT 84738
June 19-21, 26-28 at 7:30 PM, June 21 and 28 at 2 PM
Tickets: $12-35
Contact: (435) 674-2787