Coming home from her sister's funeral, Grace decides that at 87 years old ... her time has come. She's done with it all. She's ready to leave the party.
Her daughter, Dorothy, decides her mum is just depressed. She makes it her mission to show Grace the beauty of living. But Dorothy is divorced. Stuck in a dead-end job. Estranged from her own daughter, Suzie, who lives halfway across the world. Soon, Dorothy starts to worry that her mum might have the right idea.
Pushing up daisies. Kicking the bucket. Ghosting the Party. The euphemisms are endless. For a phenomenon so certain and all-encompassing, humans are terribly good at looking for ways to avoid talking about death. It's easy to forget that the concept of checking out can be complex, contradictory-funny, even. Especially when an old lady with a bone-dry wit is involved. Three generations of women face brutal questions of mortality in this uproarious pitch-black comedy from Melissa Bubnic, internationally renowned writer of Boys Will Be Boys and Beached, with Griffin's Associate Artist Andrea James in the director's chair - hand on heart and tongue in cheek. Painted with poetry, unflinching honesty and an almost absurd amount of biting one-liners, confronting death has never been this (gravely) funny.
Winner of The Lysicrates Prize
Andrea James directed Ghosting the Party and she talks to Claire Nichols on The Stage Show (ABC RN) about the play ...
https: //www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-stage-show/andrea-james-a-letter-for-molly-vocal-demands-in-musical-theatre/13883592
Bubnic, Melissa: - MELISSA BUBNIC is a writer for stage and screen. Melissa's play Boys Will Be Boys (dir. Paige Rattray), starring Danielle Cormack,  was commissioned and premiered by the STC in 2015 and has since been produced at London's Bush Theatre and by Auckland's Silo Theatre Company. Her play Beached won the 2010 Patrick White Award from the Sydney Theatre Company and was nominated for a 2013 Green Room Award. Beached premiered at the Melbourne Theatre Company and was staged at Griffin Theatre Company in Sydney in 2013. Melissa adapted Mariage Blanc by Tadeusz RÃ3Å1/4ewicz (dir. Sarah Giles) for Sydney Theatre Company, co-wrote Hazel Curtis: Fear Doctor with Petra Kalive (dir. Jason Geary), wrote Shedding (dir. Sam Strong) for La Mama, and Citizen Corps (dir. Clare Watson) for Platform Youth Theatre. Her play Stop. Rewind (dir. Anne Browning) premiered at Red Stitch Theatre in Melbourne in 2010 and toured Australia in 2012. In 2011 Melissa completed a Masters in Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is currently writing commissioned plays for the Sydney Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, and Griffin Theatre Company. Melissa has written for the TV series Shameless (UK),  Hollyoaks, and Crackanory,  and is developing numerous TV projects. She is currently writing two feature film screenplays: an adaptation of Jamaica by Malcolm Knox for Black Milk Productions and director Robert Connolly, and &Mrs for Who's On First Productions in the UK.
