What is Eden Goes Home?

Eden Goes Home is an original musical centered around themes of cross-generational tensions, socio-economic struggles, questions of national identity, and mental health. When Eden Summers, an American student at Trinity College Dublin, moves back to her small town in the U.S. due to her grandmother’s worsening dementia, she learns to appreciate the sacrifices her family members made to give her a brighter future. Granny fights for a way to be heard, despite the deterioration brought on by her dementia. Julie, Eden’s mother, laments the dream she left behind to help raise Eden. George, Julie’s husband, works overtime to earn enough money for the family to get by, all while trying to be the emotional anchor. Eden puts on a show while she buries her true self underneath a layer of frustration and depression. 

Although the show focuses largely on Eden, the presence of Granny permeates the pain of the central characters. The weight of her regression hangs heavily over the family. Without proper support from a retirement home equipped to care for dementia patients, Granny would not be able to function. Without Eden moving home from Ireland, Julie and George could never manage to get the help Granny increasingly urgently needs. Something had to give. 

Eden Goes Home may only focus on one family, but their struggles serve as a microcosm of broader societal issues. As Eden and her family grapple with the domestic changes brought about by their financial, emotional, and personal strife, they eventually learn to lean on each other rather than mourning in isolation. When the lights dim and the music swells, the audience will grieve and laugh with the Summers family on stage. Ultimately, both the characters on the stage and the viewers in the audience will be transformed.

Eden Goes Home’s Journey!

Eden Goes Home began with a single song. Director Lena Streitweiser wrote what would eventually become “Putting on a Show,” a crucial song for Eden near the beginning of the musical. When Lena’s parents heard the song, they remarked that it sounded like it belonged in a musical, and that small observation sparked the idea for Eden Goes Home.

Like Eden, Lena attended college abroad and found herself grappling with the question of what “home” really means. From that starting point, the musical grew through writing, collaboration, and the work of an all-female production team.

In December 2025, Eden Goes Home took its first step onto the stage as a rehearsed reading at the Chain Theatre. The response was warm and encouraging, giving the team valuable insight into how the story and its characters resonated with an audience. Since then, Lena has continued developing the show, adding two new songs and revising the book based on feedback from the reading.

In December 2026, the Eden Goes Home team will bring the musical to life as a fully staged production at Winterfest. This production will allow us to move beyond the page and into the world of the Summers family, with a complete production, new material, and an audience experiencing the show as a finished piece of theatre.

What Your Gift Supports

Bringing a new musical from an idea to a fully staged production takes the work of many artists and collaborators. Your gift directly supports the people who make that work possible.

Campaign funds will help us compensate the artists and creative team behind Eden Goes Home, while maintaining equal pay, union compliance, and the high production value that this project deserves. Your contribution helps make sure that every part of the process, from the performers onstage to the designers, musicians, technicians, and creative team behind the scenes, is treated as essential to the creation of the show.

By supporting Eden Goes Home, you aren't simply helping us put on a performance. You're helping an original musical take its next step toward a larger life.

Our Goals for This Project

This production is an important milestone in Eden Goes Home’s development. With your support, we hope to:

Every new musical needs opportunities to grow in front of an audience. This production gives Eden Goes Home that opportunity. It is both a destination and a beginning: a chance to share the story we have built so far, learn from the people who experience it, and take what we learn into the show's next chapter.

Director’s Note

Have you ever felt disconnected from yourself? Untethered to the life unfolding around you? Conflicted on how to be the most truthful version of yourself, and still blend in with your environment? This is the central conflict of Eden Summers, a young woman trying her best to be authentic while struggling under the weight of responsibilities just beyond the stage of life she was unwillingly and suddenly thrust into. Does this sound familiar? 

In a way, Eden’s plight is universal; we all yearn for human connection, worry too much about blending in, and strive to find our place in this wide world. Eden is not the only character in Eden Goes Home with deeply human goals, however: her father, George, works two jobs to provide for his wife and daughter, while constantly being concerned that his efforts aren’t enough. The pressure he feels to support his family is immense, though he keeps it buried underneath his sunny façade. His wife, Julie, straddles the difficult line between emotionally supporting her turbulent daughter, Eden, and being the sole caregiver for her rapidly aging and deteriorating mother, Nancy. The true identity of Nancy, or Granny, as Eden knows her, simmers underneath the surface of her dementia-rotten brain, crying to crawl back to the surface, where she might have a chance of being understood. In this sense, Granny’s struggle mirrors Eden’s own: they both crave connection, though encounter difficulties while finding an authentic way to achieve it. 

Although Eden Goes Home centers around one small, suburban family, its themes run deeper than their tree-lined avenue. Generational tensions run high, and permeate the prose as they accent the music. Each character’s deep-seeded desire to be heard pushes through the noise either in a solo song, or in a multi-character ballad aiming to move the hearts of a captured audience. My goal is to reach audiences of all shapes and sizes. Due to the musical’s inherent family-centered themes, I expect parents with young adult children to relate most strongly to the show, but I sincerely hope and expect people of all walks of life to feel connected to the characters and relate in some way to the journey they embark on together.