While You Were Out

Conceived by Andrew Dolan & Hayley Finn | Written by Hayley Finn

Here’s your chance to get inside the head of a character like you’ve never experienced before! Two simultaneous stories. One stage. 70 sets of headphones. A play about loss, family secrets and the things you can’t control.

WHILE YOU WERE OUT follows a woman who lost her mother at a young age as she figures out how to cope with her mother’s absence, stay connected to her past, and carve her own path.

Twenty years after her mother’s death, Bea hungers for more information about the woman her mother was from the adults who knew her best, but her dad’s gift to Bea of her mother’s journal presents the possibility of finding out more about her mom than she bargained for. Fast-forward 30 years, Bea finds sharp-edged memories of her mother harder to conjure, but still feels her mother’s presence in unexpected ways. 

The audience, divided into two groups, hears one or the other of the stories through a personal headset, picking up clues about the concurrent tale along the way as the two stories overlap and intersect. This is the second headset-drama created by Hayley and Andrew, who first experimented with the form in PRIVATE PARTY, developed as part of Red Eye's 2015 new works festival.