plot synopsis

In The Odyssey, Penelope’s long wait is rewarded when her husband Odysseus returns home 20 years after leaving to fight in the Trojan War. Will the same be true for Jane in modern-day Brooklyn, 20 years after her husband left for work one fateful September morning? 

select productions

— The Alley Theatre, Houston, Fall 2024 (Directed by Rob Melrose)
— The Old Globe, San Diego, June-July 2025 (Directed by Maggie Burrows)

more press

“Grief is the star of the Alley Theatre’s haunting world premiere, The Janeiad…[a play] that reminds us that we all want life to be an epic.” —Houston Chronicle

“The Old Globe’s lovely Janeiad…[is] moving and often funny…The delicious kind of play that invites a discussion on the drive home and a repeat viewing.”—San Diego Union-Tribune

“A marvel to see. The play is layer after layer of philosophy, history, literature and psychology and how those things imprint themselves into our identities.” —Houston Chronicle

“An ingenious pairing of modern grief and ancient Greek mythology that expertly offers a fresh understanding of an oft-read classic…A thoughtful what-if that allows Ziegler to draw out the ways in which myths and symbols can arise and are maintained and puncture logic-shaped holes into them… Poignant, layered, and completely recognizable… Weighty and resonant in its reimagination of myth, grief, and resilience.” —Houston Press

“A quietly gripping meditation on fidelity and the nature of grief…As difficult it must be – even a quarter century later – to write an impactful play about the events of September 11, The Janeiad gets it right.” —Broadway World (Henerson)

“A lyrical meditation on loss and the fragile myths we build to survive it….Ziegler’s language is poetic and often poignant, and moments linger with you after the lights have come up.  This is a story of how grief reorders time, identity, and one’s sense of meaning. It’s about how we wait to recognize ourselves and our lives again after a trauma.”—Broadway World (Reiter)