Road to Rouen

                        MEG:
You knew about the ball games.
Mom. You wrote that for me.
What else have you hidden in there, Suki?
Wait a minute.
(Plays a bit more.)
I remember this! I remember this section!
How can  I—remember your new concerto? How can I remember a concerto nobody has heard yet?

Meg and Stuart, the daughter and former husband of world famous composer Suki Schulman, have been called to Suki’s Paris apartment for the reading of her will by her attorney and longtime companion, Solange. A surprise clause in the will stipulates that Meg and her father must perform together a new, never-heard Concerto written by Suki or forfeit any proceeds from Suki’s estate. This means Meg must return to the music she abandoned as a child prodigy pianist — and face her estranged father, her surrogate mother Solange, and memories of her mother and her bitter Chicago childhood. Meg balances a career as a businesswoman and a new life in France. But the piano, and the relentless control of her mother, still haunt her nightmares. Now Meg must literally face the music and come to terms with the ghosts of her past, and of her future.

Through their handful of days together in Paris, Stuart and Solange try to persuade Meg to return to the piano. As Meg begins exploring the new composition, she makes a number of discoveries about her family’s past—love notes from her mother hidden in the music, secrets about the relationship between her mother and Solange, and the previously unrecognized depths of her father’s difficult but real love for her. From the dissonant chords of her mother’s music, Meg ultimately finds new possibilities for a family that still can be. (Three actors, 2 women, 1 man, and 1 pianist. One-unit set, grand piano.)

Road to Rouen received its premiere production in Minneapolis and was subsequently produced in Wichita, Kansas.