Family Planning

by Julia Edwards
Directed by Larissa Kokernot

“Four houses. Four neighborhoods. Four weekends.” Family Planning was staged in not one but four private residences. Starting in Sherman Oaks, then moving to North Hollywood, then Hollywood, before finally closing in Pasadena.

Unemployed Hamish (David Heckel) quit his high-flying finance job months ago and is still in the grip of a breakdown. Four consecutive miscarriages have made his wife, Olivia (Alina Phelan), obsessively focused on reproducing. After various pricey fertility treatments, tonight’s the night. But, no cheap pun intended, Olivia’s best-laid plans go seriously awry with the unanticipated arrivals of Hamish’s rowdy old pal Rosen (David Ari), his much-younger girlfriend, Jilly (Elia Saldana), and Hamish’s meddlesome mother, Greta (Danielle Kennedy).