By Neil Batra
Make Believe by Bess Wohl at Know Theatre opens with something immediately familiar: a child alone in a bedroom, playing with a doll.
The set is immersive. It looks like a childhood bedroom pulled straight from the ’80s or ’90s, or maybe one of those bedrooms from movies like The Goonies. It feels nostalgic before you even know what you’re supposed to be nostalgic for.
Addie (Giselle Aagaard) is playing with her doll when ghosts begin appearing behind her. Then come the screams.
“Mom?”
“Mom?!”
Three more children appear: Chris (Ryker Sohmer), Kate (Layla Rowley), and Carl (Bennet Kreit). Something is clearly wrong. The children are trying to understand what is happening around them, while a series of voicemails gradually gives the audience glimpses into their family and circumstances. It’s an effective way to reveal the story. The information arrives in pieces, letting the audience discover the situation alongside the children without getting the full picture at once.
“Make Believe” becomes a central part of how the children understand the world around them. Their games blur the line between imagination and reality in ways that become increasingly meaningful as the story unfolds.
The Performers
The four young actors are immediately impressive. Aagaard’s Addie anchors the opening and makes the strange situation feel grounded through a child’s perspective. She feels completely natural as a kid, while Rowley’s Kate works especially well opposite Sohmer’s Chris. All four create a convincing sense of siblinghood.
They have to play children dealing with circumstances no child should have to handle, while also becoming strangely adult in the process. Sohmer’s Chris carries a particularly heavy sense of guilt, giving the character an emotional weight that stands out.
Kreit gets a lot out of a role that could easily become a one-note gag. His Carl brings plenty of personality and physical comedy to the scenes, even while spending much of the childhood portion playing the family dog.
The adult cast is also strong, with each bringing something different to these characters. Leo Jenkins is particularly believable, while Merritt Beischel feels completely at home as Adult Kate. Tess Talbot gets to explore a side of Addie that feels new, and Nathan Tubbs brings a great presence to Adult Carl. Together, they give us a chance to see where these characters have ended up and what they still carry with them from childhood.
The Creative Team
Bridget Leak does a great job directing this production, keeping the pacing strong while giving the actors room to build these characters. Samantha Reno’s scenic design is one of the highlights of the night. The set looks like a childhood bedroom pulled straight from the ’80s or ’90s, packed with details that make the space feel immediately familiar.
Themes
One of the play’s strongest ideas is how difficult it can be to confront the people we’ve lost. Grief isn’t always simple. We can carry love for someone alongside anger, resentment, guilt, or things we never got to say. Those feelings don’t disappear just because someone is gone.
Make Believe understands that grief can follow us from childhood into adulthood. The play asks what we carry from the people and experiences that shaped us, even after we have grown up.
Bottom Line
Make Believe is strongest when it puts us inside the strange, imaginative world of its young characters. Its ideas about family, grief, and childhood are compelling, even as the story takes these characters into adulthood.
The play contains strong language, difficult family dynamics, and themes of loss and grief.
At 80 minutes with no intermission, Make Believe at Know Theatre is a compact but emotionally heavy experience. I recommend seeing it at Know Theatre while it runs September 10–26, 2026.
