The First to Know by Jessica Abrams
Is a Provocative New Play About
the Stories That We Tell Ourselves

Naomi, a fiercely independent, permanently single woman in her 50s, confesses that she's pregnant -- not to a confidante, not to a lover, but to her boss's boss's boss in the waiting room of a gynecologist's office. The moment is funny in its audacity, tense in its impropriety, and quietly alarming in what it implies. This opening scene of The ArtsCenter of Carrboro's Feb. 27-March 7 production of The First to Know, written by Jessica Abrams and directed by Annie M. Taft, is a knockout -- an immediate, can't-look-away jolt that grabs the audience by the collar and refuses to let go as we all wait to find out the truth.

There's only one problem: Naomi doesn't have proof. No test. No medical confirmation. Only belief.

That insistence -- Naomi's claim to an unseen reality -- sets the tone for a drama that is ultimately less about biology than about identity, memory, and the stories that people tell themselves in order to keep living. And in this production, the story's emotional punch is sharpened by how personally its creator seems to know that terrain.

Jessica Abrams' The First to Know stars Nicole Burgess (left) as Melissa and Abrams as Naomi (photo by Nina Merklina Photography)

Playwright/producer Jessica Abrams -- who also steps into the central role of Naomi -- began writing The First to Know back in 2011; and after years of revisions, readings, and workshops, she ultimately made a crucial choice: to claim the role herself. By rejiggering the story to fit her -- and raising Naomi's age into her 50s -- Abrams elevates the stakes. She uses her comedic talents with endearing results, but she never turns her character into a joke. This isn't a coming-of-age story; it's a story about what happens when you realize that you don't have infinite time to keep postponing your own life.

Director Annie Taft, a prolific playwright and longtime Triangle theater artist, guides the production with a steady trust in the script's questions rather than any impulse to rush toward tidy conclusions. Taft has described the play as one that "asks profound questions about identity, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves"; and the staging leans into that with a patient, revelation-driven rhythm. This is not a twisty thriller, sprinting toward a secret; it's a drama that watches how secrets behave when they've been buried too long -- and what it costs when other people's memories collide with the version of the past that you've been living inside.

Jessica Abrams' The First to Know stars Abrams (left) as Naomi and Liz Howard as Tamara (photo by Nina Merklina Photography)

The ensemble is a major reason that the play lands with such clarity and momentum.

Producer Nicole Burgess, who plays Melissa, is brisk, professional, and completely believable as Naomi's boss's boss's boss -- a figure who could easily become a cartoon of corporate authority. Instead, Burgess gives her the crisp competence of someone who lives on calendars and consequences, then pivots beautifully when the shared space of the doctor's office makes room for something softer. In that moment, vulnerability doesn't feel "added"; it feels discovered. Burgess' career spans stage and screen -- her credits include work in West Side Story, Un-Shame on You, and even a co-starring role in Hulu's Emmy-winning Dopesick -- and she brings a camera-trained specificity to the stage: clean choices, readable shifts, and a grounded presence that cuts through the play's destabilizing premise.

David Berberian, as Caleb, seems to carry his own private spotlight as he moves about the stage. He inhabits the character so fully that the rest of the room subtly rearranges itself around him. Berberian draws you into his world -- not by pushing for attention, but by creating a gravity you can't help but lean toward. His background with companies ranging from Manbites Dog Theater to national interactive-theatre work with Theater Delta (centered on social change and facilitated conversation) shows up in the way that he handles conflict: he doesn't play "emotion," he plays stakes. Caleb feels like a person capable of carrying history into a room and changing the temperature simply by speaking.

Jessica Abrams' The First to Know stars David Berberian as Caleb and Abrams as Naomi (photo by Nina Merklina Photography)

Liz Howard's Tamara is the kind of best friend that we all feel like we know -- and want by our side. Funny, passionate, fierce, loyal: Howard makes Tamara vivid in a way that feels instantly familiar, like someone that you've called on your worst day. It's a performance that adds warmth and bite to the play's emotional landscape, and it makes the stakes feel personal rather than theoretical. Howard brings the exciting charge of an artist returning to the stage after a long hiatus -- nearly 20 years -- yet performing with the kind of fearlessness that suggests that she isn't "getting back into it" so much as reclaiming it. With recent work ranging from staged readings to Shakespeare (including Lady Macbeth), she carries a classical actor's attention to language and subtext. In a play preoccupied with what's spoken versus what's withheld, she makes silence feel active -- an emotional strategy rather than an empty beat.

Michael Parker brings sweetness and depth to Steve, keeping him from becoming a caricature villain. The role could easily tilt toward "the guy who exists to be wrong," but Parker refuses that. He gives Steve enough humanity -- enough recognizable need -- that even when you disagree with him, you can understand how he got there. Parker's résumé -- roles from Inspector Hubbard in Dial M for Murder to The Tempest and All the Way -- points to an actor comfortable with both realism and heightened material.

Ellen B. Williams is sharply effective as Barbara, who first reads as the "mother from hell" -- the kind of parent who arrives with criticism in her purse and judgment in her posture. But Williams lets Barbara soften in believable stages. As the character shares her story, and her love for her daughter emerges from underneath the armor, the performance deepens into something unexpectedly moving: a portrait of a woman whose harshness may have been its own form of fear. Williams adds an intriguing dimension: a performer who spent decades as a classical singer and voice teacher before moving into TV/film, now returning to the stage as those worlds "collide." That training shows. Williams brings vocal command without showiness -- clarity, texture, and emotional control -- while still allowing the character to surprise. Barbara lands as more than a supporting role; she feels like part of the play's moral weather system, shaping how truth can be delivered and received.

Jessica Abrams' The First to Know stars Michael Parker as Steve and Abrams as Naomi (photo by Nina Merklina Photography)

Behind the scenes, Nathanial Baker-Sample's work as stage manager and lighting and sound designer helps the play move cleanly through its series of encounters. The First to Know unfolds in revelations -- pressure building, truths surfacing, self-mythologies cracking -- and cohesive transitions matter in a piece like this. The production keeps its grip, scene to scene, without losing the audience inside the shifts.

Ultimately, The First to Know isn't asking the audience to decide whether Naomi is "right." It's asking something more unsettling: what is belief doing for her? Is it delusion, or is it a last-ditch act of hope? Naomi's imagined pregnancy becomes a provocative metaphor for possibility -- and for the terror of being remade by forces you can't fully control. As Naomi is forced to confront long-buried truths, the play becomes a reckoning not just with a man, but with the internal story that she has used to survive.

And in the end, that's where the play quietly delivers its most bracing idea: the most reliable dream is the one that you build yourself. The First to Know is a play about releasing a version of life that no longer fits -- and finding the courage to imagine a future that is yours, and yours alone.

Jessica Abrams' The First to Know stars Ellen B. Williams (left) as Barbara and Abrams as Naomi (photo by Nina Merklina Photography)

Jessica Abrams' THE FIRST TO KNOW (In Person at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 28th and March 6th and 7th), directed by Annie M. Taft and starring (in alphabetical order) Jessica Abrams as Naomi, David Berberian as Caleb, Nicole Burgess as Melissa, Liz Howard as Tamara, Michael Parker as Steve, and Ellen B. Williams as Barbara (The ArtsCenter in Carrboro). PRESENTER/VENUE (The ArtsCenter): https://artscenterlive.org/, https://linktr.ee/artscenterlive, https://www.facebook.com/artscenterlive, https://www.instagram.com/artscenterlive/, https://www.tiktok.com/@artscenterlive, https://x.com/ArtsCenterlive, and https://www.youtube.com/@TheArtsCenterLive. DIRECTIONS/PARKING/MAP: https://artscenterlive.org/visit-us/. JESSICA ABRAMS (Manhattan, NY-born playwright, actress, and stand-up comic): https://www.jessicaabrams.com/, https://www.facebook.com/jessica.abrams.100, and https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2207070/. TICKETS: $25, plus taxes and fees, with a special DUEDATE BOGO code for the March 6th and 7th performances. Click here to buy tickets. INFORMATION: thefirsttoknowtheplay@gmail.com, 919-929-2787, or boxoffice@artscenterlive.org. PLEASE DONATE TO: The ArtsCenter.

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