A profound and often-discussed concept among those who study grief is that mourning can create a kind of divided existence, splitting life in two. It’s not uncommon for people to feel as if they are moving back and forth between different realities — one where the loss is raw and all-consuming, and another where bills still need to be paid, dishes done and meetings attended. This slippage between sorrow and the ordinary is at the heart of the play BabyCakes, running Friday to Sunday, May 30 to June 1, at Off Center for the Dramatic Arts in Burlington.
BabyCakes was written by Vermont playwright Leila Teitelman and directed by Shelburne’s Amy Halpin Riley of the Full Circle Theater Collaborative, which produced it. The play is centered on a support group for bereaved parents that meets in a small-town rec room over the course of several weeks. The members have all lost a child in different ways, at different times.
The narrative is shaped by the gradual revelation of each character’s journey. Sarah, played by Nora June Tetrick, is the group’s youngest member. She’s grieving the death of her daughter while undergoing a divorce and juggling schoolwork. Chloe Fidler’s Lynn, who turned to health and wellness to rediscover herself after a late-term miscarriage, is the weekly facilitator.
Tensions escalate when Helen, played by Alex Hudson, joins the close-knit group and struggles to open up about her past. The rest of the characters — played by a cast that includes Cael Barkman, Laura Wolfsen, Timothy Sheridan and Monica Callan — grapples with what Teitelman calls “the grief Olympics” — a competitive mentality about who has it worst and who is most deserving of support.
The production invites the audience into the support group’s orbit, for which the Off Center’s black-box theater, which seats just 80, is the perfect setting. A minimal set design accentuates the mundane details of everyday life: folding chairs to set up and break down each week; a gurgling pot of Folgers, its aroma drifting through the small space.
The storyline shifts between dialogue-driven group scenes and achingly honest monologues from each character, ushered in through choreographed movements and music. Sound designer Jess Wilson crafts an ethereal soundscape — including audio of heartbeats, sirens and laughter — to evoke the disjointed, emotionally altered space of grief.
In research for the production, Halpin Riley and Teitelman talked to regional nonprofits that run grief groups, such as Empty Arms Vermont, and to parents who have lost children. The concept that kept emerging was what the two called “touching grief.”
“There’s this magical, almost otherworldly element to the script: the idea of grief taking you to another place, even when one foot has to remain in reality,” Halpin Riley said. “We heard about that a lot — where you have to sort of touch it, then get back to earth.”
Teitelman, who also teaches theater at the University of Vermont, began writing BabyCakes in 2017 while living in New York City, the plot sparked by a friend’s dream about a woman who bakes cakes for grieving parents. She workshopped it twice before setting the play aside for several years to work on other projects, then sent it to Full Circle when she moved to Burlington three years ago.
Halpin Riley was struck by how the script captured the pressure people often feel to conceal their grief. In the production, she said, “the only way we see real vulnerability and the truth of anything is when they’re alone on the stage giving a monologue.”
“That juxtaposition is something I think is happening all over the place,” she said.
Teitelman said she has watched her characters — “which have now lived in my brain for about seven years” — come to life during rehearsals. She answered questions for the cast, gave feedback on scenes and even improvised a few alternate endings for the performance.
Halpin Riley said that in her two decades of directing Vermont theater, this was the first time she has collaborated so closely with a playwright.
The cast members brought their own depth to the process through personal research and preparation. Sheridan, who plays the grieving father, Tim, attended death cafés in Charlotte to get a sense of how to interact in group settings where death and loss were discussed. Tetrick said she read lots of Joan Didion to prepare for her role as Sarah.
BabyCakes dances between darkness and humor — a critical interplay, in both theater and life, the cast agreed.
“If you’re saturated in one emotion consistently, and that emotion is sadness, there’s no coming out of that,” said Barkman, who plays the guarded but tender Tanya. “You really need the levity of joy and laughter and connection with others.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Touching Grief | Vermont playwright Leila Teitelman’s BabyCakes premieres at Off Center for the Dramatic Arts”
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2025.
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