By Katie Houston
Farmers Alley Theatre launched its 19th season on this weekend with a comedy featuring Michigan history, alma mater rivalries and family secrets. My Mother and the Michigan/Ohio War delivers relentless laughs as a Midwestern family of three weathers the death of their patriarch Freddie, who was a rabid history buff and University of Michigan fan.
The giggles arrive from the get-go, when it’s clear that son Josh is listening to a sports game at dad’s funeral, not-so-secretly because he keeps responding to the action in his ear. Mom gives him a stern glare and exits before daughter Carey yanks out her own earbud and says, “Suck it, Buckeye!” You see, she’s a Wolverine, a graduate of the University of Michigan, and to everyone’s dismay, Josh attended Ohio State University on a football scholarship, becoming an OSU Buckeye (hiss).
Four months have passed when mom Izzy Campbell welcomes us to her kitchen, breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience. She’s about to sell her home in Lambertville, Michigan, just three miles from the Ohio state border. Of course, she shows us where that is on her hand, like all Michiganders will. Her two kids are about to arrive for some “quality” time packing up the family home so Izzy can move to a condo — an experience she likens to family therapy.
That fourth wall is further breached when Izzy doesn’t just bring us into her confidences, she enlists audience members to help tell the stories of life with Freddie and the kids. The tactic draws the audience even closer into the action, as if we are right on the 50-yard line.
We learn that daughter Carey “has been bossy since birth… and is still finding herself” a dozen years after graduating college. Son Josh has a touch of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which Izzy calls “heroically irritating.” Still, her love shows through the humor, even as she shares a sly plan to get the kids to fulfill dad’s dream to reenact the Michigan-Ohio War of 1835-36 — you know, the one where Ohio and the not-yet state of Michigan fought over a 468-square-mile patch of land at the edge of Lake Erie, known as the Toledo Strip?
Most recently seen in Farmer’s Alley production of Misery last season, Laura Jordan’s got it all, giving us an Izzy that’s warm and funny, a little sad and a little angry. She shares her salty takes on parenting: “The best part is learning to exploit their weaknesses. When they were little, I made everything a game and I never washed a window, folded a towel or mowed a lawn!” She misses husband Freddie, but maybe not as much as her kids might think. The quiet moments between the family hijinks are Jordan’s alone, as Izzy muses about life changes and confesses a few family truths.
The belly laughs continue as the kids goad each other with snide insults and embarrassing stories from the past but yet still revealing great affection. As Carey, Caitlin Cavannaugh commands her role as a snarky but loving sister — no surprise, since she originated the role at The Purple Rose Theatre in 2025. Filled with glee and sibling malice, Cavannaugh still conveys her daughterly anxiety about mom’s future as she devours rum and diet Cokes.
As Josh, Brandon Foxworth delivers the goods: he’s both fussy and funny, defensive and concerned, and surprisingly good at twerking. In fact, the play has a healthy sprinkling of musical theatre — just wait for the rousing musical finale.
The play was written and directed by Paul Stroili, a resident playwright with Chelsea’s Purple Rose Theatre, where My Mother and the Michigan/Ohio War premiered in 2025. Kalamazoo audiences may have already been familiar with Stroili’s work as he also wrote and directed the hilarious A Jukebox for The Algonquin in Farmers Alley’s 2024-25 season.
As Stroili notes in his director’s letter, “Of course your family pushes your buttons. They know where they are. They installed them.” Take a break from your own family dynamics and soak up some therapeutic laughter at this production.
The play runs 90 minutes without intermission and continues through October 4.
