Playwright Neena Beber on A Mother: Activism, Art, and the Urgency of Theater

Neena Beber is a playwright and screenwriter known for her socially engaged storytelling. Beber has made her mark in both theater and television, with works ranging from off-Broadway productions to acclaimed TV writing for Clarissa Explains it All and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  

Her latest work, A Mother, presented at Baryshnikov Arts beginning March 29, revisits and reimagines Bertolt Brecht’s The Mother through the lens of Miami in 1980—a year marked by racial unrest, the Mariel boatlifts, and the violent upheavals that reshaped the city. Developed in collaboration with longtime friend Jessica Hecht, the play examines activism, personal transformation, and the echoes of history in today’s political landscape. 

In this conversation, Beber shares the origins of A Mother, reflects on her journey as a playwright, and discusses the urgency of theater in turbulent times. 

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

How did A Mother come about?
The origin story really begins decades ago when Jessica [Hecht] and I met at NYU. I was a grad student, she was an undergrad, and we started the collaboration. She came across Brecht’s The Mother and wanted to do it in some way. It’s about a mother who becomes an activist through her son, and everybody would kind of layer in their own struggles.   

Jess and I had a convergence in Miami where she visited her grandparents and where I grew up. I remember my senior year of high school, there was the murder of a man named Arthur McDuffie. He was a black man who was killed by cops, and it was very shocking that they got acquitted. There were race riots in Miami in the spring of 1980, and we decided to make that the historical context. 1980 was a turning point year in Miami. There were the Mariel boatlifts, the race riots, cocaine wars…A lot of people talk about that year.  

It doesn’t feel a lot better right now, so this also could be an interesting time for the play. 
Sadly, yes. There’s a quote we turn to a lot, where Brecht says, “In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times.” We don’t think of theater and arts as having that kind of impact now. And yet, when I see the current administration taking over our cultural institutions, which is how it started with Hitler and with many dictators, it’s like the arts really are such an important and powerful statement of the time. So yes, it feels like the time to tell this story. I wish it weren’t. I wish it didn’t feel as relevant and urgent.  

We definitely want to sing in dark times, not just moan and wail in dark times. I hear film people saying they really miss going to a movie theater. Well, they can still come to a play and sit and have this communal experience and all of these ideas are just community building.     

What made you become a playwright?
I was always interested in writing, and there was something about theater I loved. My mom took me to shows. I’d go from Miami to New York, and to the Coconut Grove Playhouse, and I was also reading a lot of plays. I put on plays with my sister and friends for Passover like Goldie and the Three Matzo Balls. It was a marriage of these things.  

 When you were starting out, did you feel like you had anybody who was your mentor?
I have a lot of mentors,  both people who are now  ghosts on my shoulder and people who I can turn to for help. They don’t even know they’re my mentors, but I’ve studied them and learned from them and think of them when I’m writing.    

My mom owned an ad agency. It was unusual at the time, and I remember friends later saying to me that my mom was such an inspiration because they didn’t know many moms who worked. I hadn’t even thought about that. So, she was absolutely a mentor. She loved theater, took me to theater, took me to weird magic shops in New York. Like, whose mom wants them to kind of be a magician? My mom thought that would be cool. Like, for real, for real. I did magic. 

You blazed your own trail, and that is so hard to do.  
There are just so many failures and along the way that you just have to embrace. But, yeah, there were people like Julia Miles at the Women’s Project or Larry Eilenberg at the Magic, the fact that they were saying yes to me, I didn’t even quite appreciate what a big deal that was. 

What advice would you give your younger self? 
It’s funny; I have written a whole play about exactly this. It’s about a woman who becomes roommates with her younger self. It’s called Kate Suspended and it was done at the O’Neill.  

Just consider life a pilgrimage. I would tell myself to slow down and be in the moment and enjoy the process and try to be someone on whom nothing is lost. Absorb it all and be more political because it turns out it really, really, really matters.