ACT presents When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable)
Actors Collaborative Toledo Presents a Staged Reading of Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard’s When the World Was Green (A Chef’s Fable)
Actors Collaborative Toledo (ACT) invites audiences into a world of myth, memory, and mystery with a staged reading of Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard’s When the World Was Green (A Chef’s Fable). Performances will be held Friday, September 12, and Saturday, September 13, 2025, at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday, September 14, 2025, at 3:00 p.m. in the Chapel at Trinity Episcopal Church, 316 Adams Street in downtown Toledo. Tickets are only $10 and may be reserved at www.act419.org.
When the World Was Green is part parable, part confession, and part fable. At its center is a nameless chef—an old man imprisoned for poisoning a man he believed to be his enemy—and the young journalist who seeks his story. What begins as an interview transforms into a meditation on food, family, vengeance, and the possibility of forgiveness.
The production, directed by Joe Capucini, features Toledo theater artists Jeffrey J. Albright and Samantha Kirsch.
"When the World was Green (a Chef’s Fable) is a poignant sensory experience that blends food, memory, and storytelling. Jeffrey and Samantha tell this story with such honesty - I enjoy it more every time I hear it.," says director Joe Capucini. "It simply needs to be seen.”
"This play is like a whispered dream," says Jeffrey J. Albright. "It offers fragments of myth and memory that ask us to consider how the stories we inherit shape the people we become."
Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard were two of the most innovative voices in late 20th-century American theater. Chaikin, founder of the groundbreaking Open Theater, was known for his experimental, collaborative approach to performance and his search for new theatrical languages. Shepard, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Buried Child and True West, blended the mythic and the everyday in works that redefined the American stage. Their collaboration on When the World Was Green (A Chef’s Fable) brought together Chaikin’s poetic sensibility and Shepard’s uniquely American storytelling, resulting in a piece that is both intimate and universal, a meditation on memory, identity, and forgiveness.
Presented in the intimate setting of Trinity’s historic chapel, this staged reading offers theatergoers a rare chance to experience the stark beauty of Chaikin and Shepard’s collaboration—an evening where the boundaries between storytelling and truth blur into something unforgettable.
Performance Details:
- When the World Was Green (A Chef’s Fable) by Joseph Chaikin & Sam Shepard
- Directed by Joe Capucini
- Featuring Jeffrey J. Albright and Samantha Kirsch
- Friday, September 12 & Saturday, September 13 at 8:00 p.m.
- Sunday, September 14 at 3:00 p.m.
- The Chapel at Trinity Episcopal Church, 316 Adams Street, Toledo, OH 43614
Tickets: $10 | Available at www.act419.org
Press Release Contact Name: Jeffrey Albright
Press Release Contact Email: [email protected]
Organization Name: Actors Collaborative Toledo
Website or Link: www.act419.org