Death on Stage

The end of October, and the approaching Day of the Dead on November first is a fitting time to think about mortality. They say the veil is thinner at this time of year between the world of the living and the world beyond. The stage curtains are drawn, revealing the other side and opening the opportunity for contact. But who are the players and who are the audience? Or do we share the stage in a larger story that crosses the threshold of death?

The liminality of this time where the edges of the stage are permeable, reminds me of a community theater that has played a role in my family for many years. Theatre in the Round, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was started in 1952 by a group of actors and theater enthusiasts. It is known for its community-serving ethic and its quality.

It is also known for being a theater “in the round,” which refers to its arena style design, where the audience is seated on all sides around the stage. Even though the lighting emphasizes the stage and actors at the center, the audience can also see each other across the stage, watching the same play. The actors perform to all surrounding directions and even permeate the boundary of the stage as characters occasionally enter or exit from behind, or sometimes below the audience. Before and after the play, and during intermission, the audience passes through the main stage since it is the only way to enter and exit the seating area to the concessions and lobby. The boundaries between performance and audience are blurred throughout the evening.

The stage has been a witness to the portrayal of many deaths. In the beginning of October my brother and I saw the Great Gatsby. After Gatsby was shot, his body floated in the pool and deepened the center of gravity of the whole theater around that point in space, defined by a point in time when life crosses the threshold into death. His life had ended, but his story continued as versions were told by those remaining. After the play, my brother and I and the rest of the audience walked onto the stage, directly past this threshold point, playing our part as witness bystanders, and carriers of the continuity of his story.

The most impactful death scene I experienced at Theatre in the Round, was for a performance that was advertised in the local obituary. In July of 2012, with a close circle of friends and family, my mother made her final public appearance at her memorial service, wearing an engraved copper urn that complemented the memory of her red hair. The urn sat on a white garden bench in a stage set for ‘Round and Round the Garden,’ that was playing at the time. The eulogy script was written by family and based on selections of stories from her life.  But she authored the title of the play and its theme: “Heaven on Earth.”

As she neared the end of her life, she adopted the theme as her story to tell friends and family and every helpful nurse or doctor. She was filled with gratitude and wanted all to know that she had received so much love and good fortune that it made her life a heaven on earth. And she wanted any who listened to know that they, too, were a gift that supported the theme.

It was my brother who had the brilliant idea, so perfect for our mother, to hold her memorial at Theatre in the Round. This was a place that she and our father had spent many happy years attending with their friends, some of whom were able to come to the memorial. My mother did not seek attention nor need to be center stage, but she savored the richness that a theatrical approach gave her throughout her life.

As a child, before the availability of penicillin, my mother had a life-threatening case of rheumatic fever, and was bedridden for a year. Her aunt from England sent her a collection of Shakespeare’s works that sustained her spirit. She loved the rhythm and the feeling of reciting the lines. She loved the themes, that transmitted wisdom about human nature. And she loved how English it all was. It tied her to her favorite part of her ancestry, through her father that immigrated from England to Minnesota.

As she grew up, she was involved in theater in high school and college, and kept her book of Shakespeare always by her bed. She and her husband would get a babysitter and join their friends at the many theaters the Twin Cities had to offer, including Theatre in the Round. After they got home, my brother and I would hide behind the couches and listen to our parents and their friends discussing the play with coffee and dessert.

Her love of performance extended beyond her appreciation of local theater. One Halloween, approximately 50 years ago today, our home became a haunted stage set with stuffed dead bodies, a ghost that flew across the living room by strings and pulleys, and a giant black bear rug stood up to hover over the little girls in attendance. For dinner, to the delight of my girlfriends, my mother dressed as one of the witches from Macbeth reciting the cauldron scene as she served us spaghetti with a real antler. For her, all the world really was a stage and she played her part with enthusiasm.

After the memorial, as an honoring marker, our family arranged for a plaque on one of the seats at Theatre in the Round. It included the dates of my mother’s entrance and exit, and the story that ran through the many parts she played in her time.

Joann Gilbert Kulman 1931-2012
Sought to Seek and See Heaven on Earth

--memorial plaque on arm of chair at Theatre in the Round

On October 10, 2026, Theatre in the Round celebrated its 75th anniversary party. There were history displays and testimonial speeches and actors popping up throughout the theatre’s stage and gathering areas acting out excerpts of Shakespeare’s plays including the famous lines from As You Like It. “All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts,…”

The evening’s celebration concluded with music and dancing. My husband and I joined other attendees and danced on the stage. We were within feet of Gatsby’s end, and my mother’s final performance upon the garden bench. -- All of us participants in the shared stage that holds our stories across the threshold of life and death.