Finding Beauty, Light, and Emotional Clarity at Outcast Theater

— Created March 20, 2026 by Samantha Goodman

Theater Review and Photography by Jim Sovanski

“Mind Blown” and “ I have no words.” (Actually it turns out I have a lot of words.)

I know this is an odd way to start a review, but honestly, that is my original reaction to seeing Outcast Theaters’ production of ”Alabaster” by Audrey Cefaly. It’s been several days since I’ve seen the show and I’m still processing what I’ve seen.

Alabaster is a beautifully performed, searing and penetrating look into a world of pain, sorrow, suffering and loss that somehow leaves us charmed, smiling and at the end of the show, totally hopeful. I’m still trying to figure out how they managed to do that. Really great drama has the power to do that.

Who’d have thought a show with 2 women and 2 goats (but only one goat talks) about a survivor of a natural disaster and the photographer who seeks her out to tell her story, could charm one’s socks off, (so to speak). But face it, any show that opens with a goat telling us she knows she’s a goat and she’s gonna to speak anyway, has got my attention.

Alabaster first premiered in 2017 and is billed as “an all-female, darkly comic Southern drama offering a profound exploration of art’s elusive nature.” In 2020 it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won The David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize.

In talking about this show, director Gail Larson had this to say. “I chose to direct Alabaster because I related to the theme of loss and healing through art and love. The two lead characters experience nearly unbearable pain. Both take refuge in their art. When they meet, they form a bond that turns to love. I was also drawn to the use of animals as loving, healing spirits. My dogs comfort me in difficult times, just like Weezy and Bib comfort June and Alice.”

We are first introduced to the world of Alabaster, Alabama by Weezy a talking goat, played by Suzi Dixon. Weezy belongs to June and also happens to be her best friend, confidant and most importantly, her spirit guide. June, portrayed by Amanda Goodwin, is the lone survivor of a tornado that not only destroyed the town of Alabaster, it destroyed June’s family as well. It’s been three years of hospitals, surgeries and paralyzing PTSD that now keeps June clinging to life on what’s left of the family farm. She spends her days tending the garden, painting and feeding her goats Weezy and Bib, Weezy’s birth mom, played by K. Sandy O’Brien. Her fragile world is disrupted by the arrival of Alice, played by Christina Boom, a famous photographer ostensibly on a mission to photograph scarred female survivors of trauma. Emotional fireworks ensue. For both women.

Goodwin, as June explains it this way: “After reading the complexity of June, her emotional roller coaster and how at times she is not likable, I wanted to find her humanity hidden under all of her avoidant trauma and grief. I’m also a painter, so we had that in common, having taken up painting at a grief stricken juncture in my life as well.”

As a counterpoint, Boom as Alice shares, “One of the appealing aspects of Alice to me as an actor is that we are so very different. It’s relatively easy to play a character who sees the world through a lens very similar to your own. Alice comes from a dysfunctional family and was nearly destroyed by drugs and alcohol. My nuclear family was close, loving, and attentive and still is, and taking 3 Advil feels risky to me.”

One of the truly endearing aspects of the play are the two goats, Weezy and Bib, played by Outcast veterans Suzi Dixon and K. Sandy O’Brien with joyous abandon and relish. As Dixon says, “I was attracted to the part of Weezy like gum to a shoe. When Gail contacted me and said there was a part of a goat and she thought of me right away. That made me happy. Crabby animals and people are often the ones who help in unacclaimed ways. They feel all the weight of the world as their duty. Often the crabbiest are funny because they don’t hold things in reserve. I have goats and horses and frankly little ponies are the crabbiest of all! Ps. Frankly it’s a lot of fun to play a character with absolutely no vanity at all!”

O’Brien as Bib added, “I fashioned Bib as a goat who had her baby taken away like they do with a lot of animals. Animals grieve when their babies/family are taken away. So….Bib is focused on family and loss of children because she feels it deeply, she is a Spirit Animal. She also eats all the Okra.”