Grand Concourse: A Play

Grand Concourse is a play by playwright and two-time Obie Award-winning actor Heidi Schreck. It tells the story of Shelley. Having dedicated her life to religious service, Shelley runs a Bronx soup kitchen with unsentimental efficiency. When Emma—a rainbow-haired college dropout—arrives to volunteer, her volatile mix of generosity and self-involvement throws Shelley’s life into chaos. She brings a needed jolt to the place, helping a long-time client toward a new job, but her energy also proves unsettling. Even as Emma’s behavior grows steadily more erratic, Shelley still wants to believe in her, despite the mounting evidence that she shouldn’t.

Shelley must finally ask herself how well she really knows the people she sees every day, how much she can trust them, and what she can and cannot forgive. With both humor and generosity Grand Concourse asks big questions about the limits of both compassion and forgiveness.