Pier Players Theatre Company presents Kate Brennan and David Lee White’s Big Babies

Playwright David Lee White also wrote two previous Piers Players shows: 2025’s Etiquette (here’s the BSR review) and the book for 2024’s The Angry Grammarian (here’s the BSR review). This time he’s collaborating with his long-time writing partner, Kate Brennan, whose Don’t Look Back: or The Lost Tale of Persephone premiered at DreamWrights’ Youth Ensemble in York last May.

Something for every parent

With a cast of eight, Big Babies portrays a range of parenting experiences that anyone would recognize. The hosts are Janus (Chelsea Cylinder) and her husband Troy (Jeffrey Barg). Janus is so desperate for this adult evening she’s written a crib sheet of topics to discuss, ranging from Climate Collapse to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Troy is a middle-aged dad who likes to point out he’s young enough to be father to a three-year-old. You get the impression their son Zeus will be more mature than his dad by age five.

The other guests include Maeve and Kit (Abbey-Jeanne Ruger and Angie Scholl). Maeve is a stay-at-home mom to twins, and she’s so frazzled she can’t remember why she started a sentence. Kit the breadwinner is constantly exhausted. Tyler (Nina Vitek) is a late arrival, loudly happy she could get out, but she can only stay an hour and the clock is ticking. Then there’s Meg and Peg.

Peg from Upstairs is a young, vivacious single woman who keeps popping in to borrow things, eat the pigs in a blanket, and drop many, many hints about her lively single sex life and interest in the Furry community. Her twin sister Meg shows up at the party, flamboyantly announcing her separation from her partner Steve. Vanessa Torres plays both parts, and her characters simply take over every second she’s onstage. Hard to tell if it’s Torres or the way the parts are written, but I suspect it’s her. She also designed the pitch-perfect costumes.

There’s also Nico Montalvo as Steve, Meg’s ex, who has a smaller part than the others but fits in perfectly to the friend group. And smallest role: Julianne Kastner as the voice of Allegra, similar to Alexa, but apparently harder for Troy to shut off. Allegra keeps interrupting the conversations with fun facts, much like Troy probably will do when he’s a granddad.

Fun, twisty, and heartfelt

The dialogue is funny, the plot has unexpected twists, and Deborah Lynn Meier’s direction keeps everything moving frenetically yet clearly. The script has a few problems with the logistics of a two-bedroom apartment (no set designer is credited), but things happen so fast the audience barely has time to notice.

Cylinder and Barg are the heart of the show. At least one of them is on stage at any time, Cylinder with a wide-eyed expression that switches from desperation to joy, and Barg descending into hysterics. Their fights make sense, but so does their partnership. It’s a fun cast and a funny script with a strangely moving final scene.