By Liz Eichler
Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, Xavier University Theatre is marking the anniversary not with a ceremony, but with a play about the people left behind. The Guys opens their season, which they close with Come From Away, another take on how profoundly the human spirit can rise after extreme loss.
About The Guys
The Guys, by Anne Nelson and directed by Kelsey Schwarber, plays only September 10–12 in Edgecliff Hall. The intimate two-person drama focuses on the days immediately following the attacks, when a New York City fire captain asks a writer to help him create eulogies for the firefighters lost from his unit.
Through stories of courage, humor and ordinary life, the men behind the uniforms come vividly to life. As the captain and writer work together, a friendship develops. The result is less a play about the attacks themselves than a story about grief, remembrance and the very human need to find words when words seem inadequate.
“One of the greatest responsibilities and honors of storytelling is to give voice to those who can no longer be heard. With The Guys, we have an obligation to remember September 11 with humanity at its forefront,” said Kelsey Schwarber, a 2021 Xavier Theatre alumna and director of The Guys.
“Twenty-five years later, The Guys reminds us that our words are our tools: imperfect, and because of that, innately human. They bring us together, and they can bring life off the page, out of the textbook and beyond the headline, but only if we give them that power. They remind us that history is not simply something that happened, but rather something that happens to people. When we tell the stories of The Guys, we remember them not only for how they were lost but also for how they lived. We make history human.”
For the Cast the Event is History, For the Audience it is Memory
There is another layer to Xavier’s production that makes it particularly meaningful this year: many of the humans performing it were born after 2001.
For the students onstage, September 11 is history. For many of the people watching them, it is memory.
I remember where I was. I remember the phone calls to loved ones before the second plane hit. The confusion. The fear. The prayers. Those memories connect us not only to the day itself, but to the people we shared it with.
For many, September 11 also became personal through someone else’s loss. Maybe it was a colleague or a friend of a friend. The enormity of the tragedy was measured in thousands of individual lives.
Many of us have visited both the 9/11 Memorial in New York City and the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Both are deeply moving. But the Flight 93 Memorial’s collection of cellphone messages particularly stays with you. The passengers knew they were saying goodbye. Their final messages make the events of that day suddenly intimate and immediate.
That is the territory The Guys explores.
Focus on the Lives Lost
The firefighters remembered in the play weren’t simply first responders or names on a memorial. They were husbands, fathers, friends, colleagues and human beings with quirks, habits and stories. Captain Nick is trying to make sure those individual lives aren’t reduced to a number.
And perhaps that is why a play can be such a powerful way to commemorate an anniversary like this one. We know the history. We know the images. Theatre asks us to sit with the people.
It also gives us the opportunity to consider how differently the same story lands across generations.
Sarah Malarney plays Joan, the writer who helps Nick shape the eulogies, while Sean Moss, Class of 2026, plays Nick. That shared experience—between the people who remember and the people who have learned about it—is part of what makes The Guys worth seeing this weekend.
Twenty-five years later, perhaps we don’t need another reminder of what happened. We need reminders of who was there, who was lost and who was left behind to remember them.
Xavier University Theatre’s 2026–27 Season
The Guys is just the beginning of Xavier University Theatre’s season.
Next up is the perennial cult favorite The Rocky Horror Show, directed by Stephen Skiles, October 23–31. Brian Isaac Phillips directs Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing running November 19–22.
The university’s annual Student Showcase runs February 12–21 and includes Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano and Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter.
The season concludes with Come From Away, directed by Stephen Skiles, April 16–24. The musical, based on the true story of the thousands of airline passengers stranded in Newfoundland following the September 11 attacks, offers another very different lens on that extraordinary moment in history.
Taken together, Xavier’s season moves from remembrance to comedy, Shakespeare, experimental theatre and musical storytelling. But for three nights in September, The Guys gives audiences a chance to pause and remember.
The Guys runs September 10–12 at Edgecliff Hall, Long Recital Hall, on Xavier University’s campus. Get tickets HERE.
Performances are:
- Thursday, Sept 10 at 7:30 pm
- Friday, Sept 11 at 5 pm and 7:30 pm
- Saturday, Sept 12 at 2 pm and 7:30 pm
