September is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, and to recognize the impact that Alzheimer’s has on families around the world, we will be hosting a performance of Eileen Byrne Richards’ play, Running With Coffee.
Running With Coffee is a bittersweet comedy about caregiving, and the upheaval a family goes through when aging parents move in with their grown children. It is based on the playwright’s own experiences of caring for her parents for seven years. Byrne Richards performs every character in this one-woman show, including the mother, father, older sister, husband, and younger and present-day versions of the family’s youngest sister, Sue. This play was performed as part of the 1st Irish Origins Theater Festival in the spring, and she was nominated for a Best Actress award for the performances.
A Queens native, Eileen Byrne Richards attended Fordham University and then went on to be one of the hosts of the immensely popular WFUV-FM Irish music program Ceol na nGael. Her other performed works include “Snowglobal Warming,” (Zoom, July 2020), “Wingman” (October, 2019), “Tenants” (June, 2019) at Players Theater in NYC, “Allegations” at 2nd Act Players/MeToo Festival, Evanston (May, 2018), and “The One That’s a Play,” Stage 773, Chicago, (March, 2015).
Some of the proceeds for this performance will be donated to Alzheimer’s charities.