The Lifespan of A Fact

written by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, Gordon Farrell

directed by Stuart Wenger

A comedic yet gripping battle over facts versus truth. Jim is a fresh-out-of-Harvard fact checker for a prominent but sinking New York magazine. John is a talented writer with a transcendent essay about the suicide of a teenage boy – an essay that could save the magazine from collapse. When Jim is assigned to fact check John’s essay, the two go head-to-head in a debate between artistic license versus libel, details versus ‘essence’. Can their editor, Emily, save the essay in time to be published – while playing referee between Jim and John? Funny, smart, and timely, this play – based on John D’Agata and Jim Fingal’s book of the same name (which detailed the actual debate) debuted on Broadway in 2018 (Daniel Radcliffe, Bobby Cannavale, and Cherry Jones were the performers).