Life After Life began in the summer of 2024 when Dominique Alfandre, Thomas Palmer and Jane Carey invited Jed Hancock-Brainerd and Rebecca Noon to create a play in the Common Burying Ground. From there the group spent months in the CBG, researching, dreaming, and bringing together more collaborators. Curious about who was involved? Meet the team.

By the spring of 2025, all the dreaming was channeled into a script that featured as many characters they could squeeze into an hour-long performance. Curious about the characters? Want to read some selections of the play? Head here.

Rather than limit the number of actors, the team decided to open the doors as wide as possible. In order to tell the story of the Newporters buried in the Common Burying Ground and God’s Little Acre, all kinds of people played many roles. People of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels came together as performers in the show, singers in the choir, and behind-the-scenes helpers. See portraits of the actors with the graves of the people they portrayed.

The Life After Life performances were November 1 + 2, 2025. We could only accommodate 40 audience members at a time and all of the tickets were quickly booked. We are grateful to everyone who made Life After Life.