The first production photos are out for Unconditional, Margot Rose’s musical memoir at The Club at La MaMa, with the final weekend still to come. After the Saturday, October 24 performance, Gretchen Cryer stays on for a talkback.
The run is short: Thursday, October 15 through Sunday, October 25, in The Club at La MaMa at 66 East 4th Street. That leaves this weekend. Rose wrote the piece and performs it, directed by Anne Kenny. It is the show’s New York premiere, presented by La MaMa with William Mellon’s company, Magic Panda Productions.
The story is a true one. Two women set out to start a family when LGBTQ+ parents had few legal protections and fewer examples to follow, and the show tracks the years it took: fertility treatment, money stretched thin, a community that showed up. Decades later, a sudden loss forces the family to ask what staying a family still means. Rose tells it with humor and original songs.
The score is by Rose and Aaron Benham, who is also musical director and arranger. Melina Young joins Rose onstage as The Girl. Alison Brummer designed the set and the lighting. The photos are by Austin Ruffer.
Saturday’s talkback reunites Cryer and Rose. Cryer wrote the book and lyrics for I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It On the Road, with music by Nancy Ford, and starred in it; Rose was in the original company at the Public Theater, as Alice. The cast album earned Cryer a Grammy nomination, and her other shows with Ford have won an Obie, the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical and an Outer Critics Circle Award. She is now writing a new musical, House On Fire, with her granddaughter Gracie Hyland.
The piece took the long way to New York. Rose started work on it in January 2019; the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles gave it a three-performance workshop in January 2024, and its first full production opened at the Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles on February 15, 2025. On screen, Rose’s credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Desperate Housewives.
Unconditional runs about 90 minutes, according to La MaMa. Tickets for the remaining performances are on sale from La MaMa.
