'Morning After Grace' at Alhambra Theatre & Dining Balances Sitcom Spark With Soul-Deep Honesty

Alhambra Theatre & Dining’s Morning After Grace is the kind of play that sneaks up on you. It opens with the recognizable mechanics of sitcom comedy — a disoriented morning after, mistaken assumptions and mounting embarrassment — but before long it reveals itself to be something richer, sadder and far more profound. Written by Carey Crim and directed by Tod Booth, this three-character dramedy finds humor in indignity, heartbreak in loneliness and, ultimately, grace in the stubborn human need to connect.

Crim’s script is beautifully and brilliantly structured, with a gift for delivering exposition through character and action rather than announcement. An early phone call from Abigail’s friend efficiently orients the audience while sharpening both character and comic tension — a deceptively simple device, but an elegant one. The setup itself is deliciously awkward: Abigail wakes up in Angus’s condo fully aware of what happened, but suddenly forced to sit with the embarrassment of it in daylight. One of the funniest beats comes when she finds women’s clothing in his closet and scrambles for an explanation, briefly deciding — or perhaps hoping — that Angus is a cross-dresser, because the alternative, that she has slept with a married man, is far worse. It is sitcom-level comedy in the best sense, rooted in recognizable panic and social embarrassment. But the show never stays on the surface for long.

Kevin Anderson is terrific as Angus, delivering outstanding physical comedy with timing so exact it feels almost musical. Every awkward shift, delayed realization and flustered reaction lands cleanly, but Anderson never reduces Angus to a comic type. He gives him dignity beneath the confusion, allowing the audience to laugh at the situation without losing sight of the ache underneath it. Hillary Hickam is equally sharp as Abigail, bringing wit, indignation and vulnerability in careful balance. In the early scenes, she lets Abigail’s mortification mingle with the faint, rebellious thrill of having done something impulsive and a little reckless. She understands how to let Abigail’s defenses generate comedy while still revealing the loneliness and longing behind them.

Then there is Eugene Lindsey as Ollie, whose arrival transforms the play from an amusing morning-after tangle into something considerably deeper. Lindsey has a wonderful instinct for the play’s tonal pivots. The way Ollie pieces together how Angus and Abigail know each other is delicious, turning what could have been mere exposition into a scene of genuine dramatic electricity. Later, he delivers a monologue that silences the audience completely — an emotionally riveting moment, the kind that changes the air in the room.

One of the production’s greatest strengths is how evenly matched these three performers are, both comedically and dramatically. No one is carrying dead weight, and no one is straining to dominate the stage. Instead, what develops between them feels organic and alive, with chemistry that ebbs, flows and deepens as the evening progresses. Their emotional connection grows in ways that feel earned rather than engineered, and that evolving bond gives the play its deepest resonance.

Booth’s direction keeps the production agile enough to land the laugh lines while never losing sight of the emotional undercurrent. Several moments feel as though they could plausibly serve as the ending, yet each subsequent epilogue proves more satisfying and more beautiful than the last. That can be a dangerous structure in lesser hands, but Booth manages the rhythm carefully, allowing the play to unfold in emotional waves rather than hard stops.

Visually, the production is just as thoughtful. David Dionne’s set design is superb, detailed right down to outlets and light switches, creating a space that feels fully lived-in rather than merely suggested. There is something unmistakably sitcom-adjacent about it — as if it were pulled straight out of The Golden Girls and rebuilt in the early 2000s — but that familiarity works in the production’s favor. It gives the audience an instantly legible domestic world, then lets the script complicate what appears comfortable. The kitchen peninsula is especially clever: angled at roughly 45 degrees, it adds dimension, improves sightlines and takes up less stage space without sacrificing realism.

Patti Eyler’s work as property master is equally effective. Fake food can kill a scene instantly, and this play depends on the rhythms of eating, handling and sharing food in ways that feel completely authentic. Here, every snack is not just believable but essential to the show’s lived-in texture and comic reality.

What makes Morning After Grace so affecting is the way it lets comedy and pain coexist, as they so often do in life. Some scenes play with the bright snap of a sitcom, while others hit with startling force, digging into grief, aging, regret and the terror of being known too well. The writing never treats those subjects with false solemnity, nor does it trivialize them for easy laughs. There is also something refreshing about seeing a relatively recent play produced locally — so much of what gets staged in Jacksonville is already decades old by the time it reaches audiences. Morning After Grace feels contemporary not because it chases trends, but because its emotional language still feels immediate. While its themes may land with particular force for middle-aged and older audiences, the comedy is accessible enough to reach nearly anyone, even if the subject matter makes it unsuitable for younger viewers.

With a sharp script, an exceptional cast and direction that understands both the laughs and the bruises beneath them, Alhambra’s Morning After Grace delivers an evening of theater that is hilarious, humane and unexpectedly moving. It sends the audience reeling from laughter one moment and absorbing a punch to the gut the next. By the end, what lingers is not the comedy of one strange morning, but the beauty of people finding connection after life has convinced them to expect less.

Morning After Grace runs Thursday, April 9 through Sunday, May 10 at the Alhambra Theatre.

For more information, full cast and crew credits and links to tickets, visit the Morning After Grace page here on JaxPlays.