PYGmalion Theatre Company opens its 2025/26 season on Friday, November 7, with the Utah premiere of Tiny Beautiful Things at the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts.
The play is based on Cheryl Strayed’s book of the same name, a collection of Dear Sugar advice columns written by the bestselling author. The story surrounds Strayed’s time spent as an advice columnist named Sugar and those who sent her letters in hopes of solving their unique problems. To that end, topics run the gamut, touching on themes as wide-ranging as death, grief, birth, sex, friendship, loss, and love.
Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos, Tiny Beautiful Things allows a new way to look at the questions and answers Sugar was publishing online between 2010-2012. It’s a reminder that, even though the act of writing and responding to letters can be largely anonymous acts, these are real people in search of answers. This play exists to give them faces.
“I hope that people will be moved … that they will laugh some, and feel connected. One of the throughlines [of this play] is that every one of those letter writers is trying to connect in a human way, maybe because they didn’t have anyone else to go to,” says Tamara Howell, who both plays Sugar and co-directs the production along with her daughter. “I hope people in the audience feel a little less alone and a little less disconnected after seeing our play. The state of the world right now is sort of a polarized, disconnected society, and I hope they come away from this feeling more connected, more included.”
The small cast also includes Stephanie Howell (no relation), Ali Lente and Matthew Ivan Bennett as the letter writers. Madison Howell (Tamara’s daughter) co-directs, along with PYGmalion artistic director Fran Pruyn.
This is the first time Madison has directed alongside her mom, and she says the actors she’s rehearsed with for this play have been refreshingly collaborative; they constantly come up with such good ideas, she often finds herself in awe of the kind of professionalism and experience they exude.
“The stories being told in this show are so universal, and they come from like a cast playing such a huge variety of characters — from different backgrounds and in very different situations — and yet they are all so unified in their humanity and the problems they’re dealing with,” Madison says. “Even if you didn’t have the specific problem that a letter writer is talking about, you’ll find you have likely experienced the feeling they’re telling you about. It unifies people. We are truly all the same if we really peel back the layers.”
That’s an opinion also shared by one of the actors in the play, Stephanie Howell.
“I hope the audience comes out after watching this play with a hopefulness about what people can do and how people can help one another. I mean, there’s a lot in it that’s funny, too. It’s a little bit of everything,” Stephanie says. “It’s funny and it’s dramatic. It’s silly and it’s serious. Everyone who comes will probably leave having had a different experience.”
The show runs from November 7 to November 22, 2025 at the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts. Tickets are available for purchase on PYGmalion Theatre Company’s website.
More from PYGmalion Theatre Company
PYGmalion’s season will continue with “Becky Nurse of Salem,” a contemporary comedy by Sarah Ruhl about an ordinary but strong-willed grandmother trying to get by in post-Obama America by dabbling in witchcraft. Directed by Morag Shepherd, the play runs Feb. 6 to Feb. 21, 2026. In May, PYGmalion presents the world premiere of “Plan C,” a comedic tragedy by Andrea Peterson about one woman’s battle for autonomy in a world hell-bent on deciding who she should be.
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