Overview: A contemporary family comedy about belief, autonomy, and the chaos that follows when those beliefs collide.

Set across a series of virtual gatherings and a long-delayed reunion, The Variants follows a mother and her adult children as competing realities begin to fracture the space between them. What starts as familiar family dysfunction escalates quickly, as questions of truth, control, and consequence move from abstract to deeply personal.

Balancing sharp humor with emotional precision, the play allows multiple perspectives to coexist—until they no longer can.

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Synopsis: Diane and her three adult children gather for weekly online video chats, holding the family together the way she always has.

When she announces plans for a long-awaited in-person celebration—with the expectation that everyone will be vaccinated—her eldest son refuses. The resulting chain reaction exposes fractures far beyond a single disagreement.

As the weeks unfold, private truths surface, alliances shift, and the family’s fragile sense of order begins to collapse—culminating in a reunion that forces them to confront not just what they believe, but what those beliefs cost.

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Context: The Variants explores what happens when shared reality breaks down inside a family.

The play engages questions of autonomy, consequence, and the limits of tolerance—particularly when deeply held beliefs collide with lived experience. While grounded in a specific cultural moment, the story ultimately moves beyond it, focusing on the enduring dynamics of family: who gets to define truth, who gets to be protected, and what happens when those answers no longer align.

At its center is Diane, a matriarch whose attempt to hold her family together reveals the cost of doing so.

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Current development: The Variants is currently being presented in a concentrated Fringe version, designed to foreground the play’s central emotional engine and comedic momentum.

This iteration focuses the action through Diane, clarifying the core dramatic spine while preserving the ensemble dynamic and thematic complexity.

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Production notes:

• Cast: 4 adults

• Runtime: 50-minute Fringe version; full-length in development

• Staging/tech: Flexible and lean

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Response:

“An edgy but optimistic story about family…timely and full of hope that people on different ends of ideological spectrums may still come together.”
— Lanie Vansant, Playwright

“The dialogue is fantastic…hilarious, nuanced, and human. I can absolutely picture this making an audience crack up.”
— Epiphanies New Works Festival Reading Committee