Parker Players Theater Company presents ‘The Lifespan of a Fact’ in Barrington

In rehearsal for “The Lifespan of a Fact,” the arguments arrive quickly.

Not the kind actors politely shape and refine, but the kind that interrupt, overlap, and refuse to settle. A sentence gets challenged. A number gets questioned. A word — just one word — becomes the battleground.

It feels less like rehearsal and more like a live negotiation over reality itself.

That’s exactly the point.

Parker Players Theater Company’s latest production — “The Lifespan of a Fact” by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell — is built on a real-life literary clash between essayist John D’Agata and fact-checker Jim Fingal. What began as a routine magazine assignment — verifying an essay about Las Vegas and a teenage suicide — spiraled into a national debate about accuracy, authorship and the role of truth in storytelling.

In the play, that debate unfolds at high speed. Fingal interrogates every detail. D’Agata defends every choice. Between them sits an editor, trying to contain the fallout as the stakes rise. But what makes the piece resonate now is not just its premise, it’s the uneasy recognition it sparks.

“I was raised in a family where facts were sacred,” Artistic Director Jennifer McHugh said. “If you told a story, you got it right. No embellishing. No ‘creative interpretation.’ Just the truth.”

“Then I married a storyteller,” she said. “Someone who could turn even the smallest moment into something unforgettable. And I started to notice: people weren’t listening for accuracy. They were listening for meaning.”

It’s a realization that sits at the heart of this production.

In “The Lifespan of a Fact,” the central question isn’t simply what is true, but what kind of truth matters. Is it the measurable, verifiable detail? Or the emotional resonance that makes a story land?

D’Agata’s argument is unapologetic: facts can be shaped in service of a greater truth. Fingal pushes back, insisting that once facts become flexible, trust begins to erode.

The play never resolves the debate. Instead, it accelerates it, turning footnotes into fireworks, statistics into stakes, and editorial notes into something closer to combat.

For Parker Players, a company known for intimate staging, the material feels especially potent. With audiences seated just feet away, every shift in tone, every interruption, every moment of tension lands without buffer.

“There’s no distance from the argument,” McHugh said. “You’re in it. You’re choosing sides in real time, then questioning your own reasoning moments later.”

That immediacy mirrors the world outside the theater, where information moves quickly, certainty feels elusive, and the line between fact and interpretation continues to blur.

Which is why the play doesn’t feel like a period piece about a publishing dispute. It feels current; uncomfortably so.

Because beneath the wit — and the play is often very funny — there’s a deeper unease: If a story feels true, does it have to be? And perhaps more urgently: At what point does a “small adjustment” become something more consequential?

By the end of “The Lifespan of a Fact,” audiences aren’t handed answers. They’re handed responsibility. To listen more closely. To question more carefully. To decide for themselves what and whom they trust.

“The Lifespan of a Fact” runs 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays April 24 through May 17, with understudy performances 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, April 30 and May 14, at Parker Players Theater Company, 540 W. Northwest Hwy., Barrington. Tickets are $38.43 for general admission, $33.23 for ages 65 and older, $28.03 for students and industry, and for the understudy performances.

Tickets and full details, visit parkerplayerstheater.org/plays-events/the-lifespan-of-a-fact.