Two years ago, I went to a Shakespeare festival in the mountains of Oregon. I didn’t expect to meet someone who would become a scene partner, a confidant, and—somehow—a second chance at a grandfather.
Kevin Cahill is a retired high school teacher, just like my own grandfather was. We met through Shakespeare and poetry, but really, we bonded on long hikes, through quiet conversations, and a shared love of stories. I told him about the letters I’d found—love letters between my grandparents in the 1950s—and how I didn’t yet know what they would become. He listened with such care.
On the final day of the festival, Kevin handed me a letter he had written. Inside were poems and reflections that had once moved him—and now moved me. Something shifted. I didn’t yet know what the play was, but I knew it had to be a conversation between me and my grandfather. And I knew Kevin had to play him.
This past November, I sent him the script. I asked if he’d do it. His response came quickly: I’m in. And he meant it.
Since then, we’ve found moments across an eight-hour time difference between Oregon and London—rehearsing over Zoom, squeezing in calls between my side jobs and his quiet mornings. We rehearsed in borrowed studios and apartments. I brought him to New York. And now we’re here in Edinburgh—living together in an Airbnb with his family and performing this play every day.
The whole premise of Letters to Joan is a reckoning with memory and legacy—between a granddaughter and her grandfather, between what we inherit and what we create. Somehow, life has caught up with the story. Kevin is stepping into a longtime dream of acting. I’m stepping into mine: performing the work I’ve written. What began as a tribute to the past has become a living, evolving experience in the present.
Even the behind-the-scenes has started to reflect what’s onstage. I’ve always found that through the characters I play, I learn more about myself. But there’s something uncanny about playing yourself and still having that happen. In the moments when I try to control everything (a very “me” trait), I watch Kevin calmly hold space for whatever’s unfolding—and I remember what presence really looks like.
My play explores how hard it is to say the things that matter most to the people we love before they’re gone—how the words can feel too big, or like they might undo us. And I feel that with Kevin, too. I can share this here, and with audiences and friends. But to say it to him directly—to truly express what it means to have him be part of this journey—feels almost too much to bear.
This story started with a letter. Kevin gave me one that day I’ll never forget—not just words on a page, but an invitation to trust where the story could go. Now, two years later, we’re inside it together.
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