Sometimes life’s defining moments inspire art. Last Sunday afternoon, in the Rye Arts Center performing arts room, an overflow crowd watched the debut stage reading of the original play, “Letting Carl Go,” by Rye resident and writer Karen Pennar.

 

Sometimes life’s defining moments inspire art. Last Sunday afternoon, in the Rye Arts Center performing arts room, an overflow crowd watched the debut stage reading of the original play, “Letting Carl Go,” by Rye resident and writer Karen Pennar. 

 

Rye High School senior Lizzy Emanuel played the role of the daughter and Westchester resident and actress Elizabeth Mialaret played the mother. Together they confront the tragedy of losing a beloved father and husband to a brain aneurysm. Michael Limone, Rye Arts Center board member and Director of the Theater Program at Rye High School, played the role of a transplant coordinator attending to the details of the organ donation.

 

The play is a tribute to Pennar’s husband, Frederic Wiegold, who died in 2008 at the age of 61. Wiegold was the New York Bureau Chief and an editor-at-large at Bloomberg News, a Wall Street Journal reporter, and founding editor of the Journal’s Money and Investing section. The play dramatizes the sudden loss of a loved one and is based on the real-life experience of Pennar and her daughter Gwendolyn as they confronted the agonizing decisions involved in the process of donating organs.

 

Getting feedback in a Q&A session after the reading was “immensely helpful,” said Pennar after the April 14 event. “For a playwright, a critically important part of the process is hearing their work read out loud. It was fascinating to hear such talented local and regional actors bringing my words to life and making the characters their own,” she said. “I want to thank my daughter, my friends, family and all the actors, as well as Michael Limone and The Rye Arts Center, for all their support in the staging of this reading.”

 

Photos by Joel Darelius