The Shadow Box
by Michael Cristofer

January 12-27, 1990
Directed by Don Shirey

"There are five different stages that a person will go through when he faces the fact of his own death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages will last for different periods of time, they will replace each other, or exist at times side by side ... but one thing that usually persists though all these stages is hope."

- E. Kubler-Ross, M.D.

Within the time span of one day, the members of three very different families face the one thing the have in common: the fact that one member of each family is in the last stages of a terminal illness. Temporarily living in the insulated comfort of three cottages at a hospice facility, these three families represent a cross-section of the American family unit.

The manner in which each individual confronts the impending loss of a loved one is as diverse as human nature itself; touching, tearful, courageous, angry, blindly hopeful, and at times, surprisingly hilarious. But THE SHADOW BOX is not about dying, it is about people, about life, about living until you die rather than dying while you live...more specifically, it is about eight wonderfully different people and how they grow through the emotional and psychological stages that lead them, and those they love, to a gratitude for life and to the acceptance of its termination.