Experience an Ohio family’s story told through visual and musical relics in a moving theatrical performance, Relics and Their Humans. Seated on stage in Centennial Hall.
Join the performers on a theatrical and musical journey alongside the Quillen family in Dover, Ohio. Three key family relics—a recorded interview with Quillen’s mother, Jerry Quillen’s journal, and a surprising playlist — guide us through three years of family life framed around the years following a devastating ALS diagnosis. Using reimagined musical classics, from “One Less Bell to Answer” to “Free Bird,” and phrases from Jerry’s journal, Gordon and Quillen’s spirited performances, together with playwright and director Talvin Wilks’s inventive dramaturgy and Jennifer Tipton’s evocative lighting design, transform these elements into a beautiful storytelling experience.
Relics and Their Humans marks the second collaboration between writer, director, and performer Ain Gordon and composer, writer, and percussionist Josh Quillen (So Percussion). This work was partially developed during a 2022 residency with Arizona Arts Live.
Please note: this performance will be presented without intermission, with no late seating. Photos: Darrell Hoemann.
Relics and Their Humans was commissioned by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Wexner Center for the Arts, and Arizona Arts Live, with partnership performances at La MaMa Etc (NY) and support, in part, from the NEFA National Theater Project.
