Melanie Maria Goodreaux Marks 25 Years of Theater with How to Get to Heaven from the Crawfish Pond

At a Glance

• How to Get to Heaven from the Crawfish Pond, a new dark comedy written by Melanie Maria Goodreaux, is having its world premiere at Theater for the New City (TNC).
• Performances run November 5-22, 2026, Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 PM and Sunday at 3:00 PM.
• 2026 is Goodreaux's 25th year of writing and directing plays.
• Two actors from her 2025 TNC production The Popes of Farragut Street are 2026 AUDELCO Award nominees.

Playwright and director Melanie Maria Goodreaux has returned to Theater for the New City (TNC), her longtime creative home, with the world premiere of How to Get to Heaven from the Crawfish Pond. The darkly comic Louisiana love story, in which death does not end a marriage, runs through November 22, 2026.

The production marks a milestone for Goodreaux: 2026 is her 25th year of writing and directing plays. It follows her recent TNC productions The Popes of Farragut Street, from 2025, and Rita Is the Goat, from 2024. The White Blacks also played at TNC.

Hollie Harper and Benjamin Rowe, actors in her 2025 TNC production The Popes of Farragut Street, have received 2026 AUDELCO Award nominations. Harper is nominated for Featured Actress in a Play for her performance as Rachel Patsy. Rowe is nominated for Lead Actor in a Play for the role of Conrad Patsy.

The nominations bring the number of AUDELCO nominations connected to Goodreaux's TNC productions to four. Rita Is the Goat was recognized too. Its cast was nominated for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in 2025.

The play is set in Louisiana and carries Goodreaux's blend of magical realism, surreal comedy, spirituality and poetry. It asks what we owe the people we love before, and perhaps even after, death.

Crawfish farmer Earl Roussel has been dead for ten years when he suddenly wakes up in a "Purgatory" that happens to be his own front yard. He longs for his wife, Ruth. She is on her deathbed, yet she escapes at night to see him so they can make love.

Meanwhile, their estranged sons and daughter are at odds over money "stolen" from the family, and a pair of nuns may be more con artists than women of God. Earl and Ruth refuse to let something as inconvenient as mortality separate them. Their children must confront old wounds and family secrets, and decide whether reconciliation is still possible with time running out.

The new play continues Goodreaux's exploration of New Orleans and Louisiana culture, Black life, spirituality and family, and of the complicated ways people search for love and redemption.

Performances are November 5-8, 12-15 and 19-22, 2026. Evening shows begin at 8:00 PM Thursday through Saturday, with Sunday matinees at 3:00 PM. Seniors and students receive discounted tickets. Sundays are pay what you can.

Tickets and further information are available on the production's ticketing page.

Goodreaux wrote the play and directs it with Christopher Bello. The cast features Arlene A. McGruder, Alan Walls, Jasmyn Unique Tilford, Javán Robinson, Riyadh Rollins, Tabitha Bradley and Mary-Linda Greene.

• Set and Props: Lytza Colon, Gregory Paul
• Lighting Design: Alex Bartenieff
• Sound Design: Luke Santy, Boston Fielder/Urb Alt, Anthony Harper, Christopher Bello
• Visuals and Projections: Anthony Harper, Christopher Bello
• Casting: Mary-Linda Greene
• Costumes: Billy Little
• Graphics: Diane Sullivan, Christopher Bello
• Producers: Mark Holloway, David Kahl, Anthony Harper, Bruce Morrow, Norah Lawlor

Goodreaux is an award-winning playwright and director. She is also a poet. Her plays have been featured at Chelsea Playhouse, the House of Tribes Theater, the Abingdon Theater, Studio Players Theater, the Linhart Theater, the Lillian Theater in Los Angeles, the Nuyorican Poets Café, HOWL! Festival, the New York Theater Festival, the Hudson Guild Theater, Theater for the New City and The Foundry.

She received the American Woman Project Solo-Play Development and Production Award (2020-2021) for Dramatic Question. A fixture of New York's downtown theater scene, she has taught creative writing and drama at Urban Arts Partnership, Creative Theatrics and Theater for a New Audience.

Since its founding in the 1970s, Crystal Field and Theater for the New City have championed emerging playwrights for the American stage, regardless of race, sexuality, economic status or gender. Its Emerging and Presenting Playwrights Program supports artists as they forge their paths in the arts.

Over the years, hundreds of playwrights have found their home at TNC. They include Suzan-Lori Parks, María Irene Fornés, Harvey Fierstein, Bina Sharif, Charles Busch, Andrea Fulton, Eduardo Machado and William Electric Black. More information is available at Theater for the New City.