Bring Mother’s Farewell to the Stage
Help bring meaningful new work to life through faith, family, and the arts.
Mother’s Farewell, an original play by Siobhan Fallon Hogan, is a funny, tender, and deeply human story about family, faith, memory, forgiveness, and the beauty that can emerge in life’s most fragile moments.
Following successful table readings at the Napa Institute Arts Festival, the Athenaeum Center is developing the work toward a fully realized production on our Historic Main Stage during the 2027 Season, with the potential to carry the production and its story to audiences beyond Chicago.
Athenaeum Center is committed to bringing more art and more beauty into the world because we think these things make human life richer. Beauty moves the whole human person, connects us with others who are sharing the experience, and brings us to greater knowledge of reality.
Beauty is the visible form of the good.
—Saint John Paul II
A Family Story of Faith, Love, and Letting Go
Mother’s Farewell follows Jane Fallon, the elderly matriarch of a fiercely loving and hilariously dysfunctional Irish Catholic family, during the final day she spends surrounded by her daughters, sister, and granddaughter. They pray, argue, tell stories, drink wine, worry, correct one another, and try, imperfectly but faithfully, to accompany Jane through her final hours.
Written by Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Mother’s Farewell finds comedy in the chaos of family life without losing sight of the sacredness of death. At its heart is a story about love, surrender, dignity, reconciliation, and the grace that can emerge when a family finally accepts that it cannot control the ending.
Naturally at Home at Athenaeum Center
Chicago’s Irish Catholic communities will recognize much in the world of Mother’s Farewell: faith lived through family, storytelling, obligation, humor, prayer, food, drink, and fierce loyalty.
But its appeal reaches much further. Nearly everyone knows some version of this room—the aging parent, adult siblings falling back into old roles, medical uncertainty, resentment, memory, prayer, and the desperate need to laugh.
That combination of specificity and universality makes the work a natural fit for the Athenaeum Center. Founded in 1911 as a Catholic cultural and intellectual center, the Athenaeum exists to present work that takes the human person seriously and engages questions of Beauty, truth, goodness, dignity, suffering, mercy, and hope through the arts.
Mother’s Farewell does exactly that, not through abstraction or instruction, but through comedy, family, and story.
Acclaimed Artists Behind the Work
Written by and starring Siobhan Fallon Hogan
credits include Saturday Night Live · Seinfeld · Men in Black
The development of Mother’s Farewell has also brought together acclaimed performers including:
Patricia Heaton
Everybody Loves Raymond
Laila Robins
Tony-nominated Broadway veteran
Margaret Colin
Independence Day · Gossip Girl
Welker White
The Irishman
Sinead Hogan
Shelter in Solitude
Peter Hogan
Tim Durkin
Hear From the Audience
“I equally laughed and teared up during the performance of Siobhan’s heartfelt and humor-filled play.”
Laura Carrione
Fox News
“The characters in this play are fantastic… the central family dynamics grounded the piece in a way that surprised and moved me.”
Katie North
Tony-Nominated Broadway Producer
“The cast was unbelievably perfect and Siobhan Fallon Hogan was spectacular.”
Dan Peate
Peate Ventures
From Development to Full Production
The next step is to transform Mother’s Farewell from a developing work into a fully staged theatrical production on the Athenaeum Center’s Historic Main Stage.
Total Production Budget
$641,235
Projected Ticket Revenue
$220,502
Donation Support Needed
$420,733
Production: $283,668
Sets, crew, stage management, lighting, administration, safety, and the resources required to bring the work fully to the stage.
Subsidized Access: $123,284
Discounted and complimentary access for students, parishes, and other communities, helping ensure that cost is not a barrier to experiencing the work.
Marketing: $119,500
Reaching audiences throughout Chicago and introducing the production to communities who may see their own families and experiences reflected in the story.
Artists: $119,500
Supporting the actors, director, designers, and creative team bringing the work to life.
The goal is not only to bring Mother’s Farewell to the stage in Chicago, but to give the work a strong foundation for what comes next. A successful first production can help open the door to future presentations, new partnerships, and audiences well beyond its initial engagement in Chicago.
Nearly $40,000 has already been raised
Every additional contribution moves the production closer to opening night.
Be Part of What Comes Next
Help develop an original work from the page to the Historic Main Stage, and give it the opportunity to reach audiences well beyond Chicago.
For information about leadership gifts and other opportunities to support the production, please contact development@athenaeumcenter.org.
You will play a pivotal role in building something beautiful for our community and the world.
