HOME: the Origin Story

Fleur Alys Dobbins

Home received a staged reading during our 2025 New Works Festival.

In the spring of 2018, I sat in the living room with my grandmother in a circular conversation. I had not yet caught up with the fact that her sense was not making. And not likely to get better. She had not yet been officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s but the family did not doubt it. At some point I floated out of my body, watching us. Would anyone believe this? This feels like a play.

What I couldn’t know then was that the writing of Home would be my pilgrimage on the journey of grieving; a diving deep into the individual sufferings of my beloved family—and all families—that are hit not only by Alzheimer’s, but any suffering they must meet head on.

At some point, as will generally happen to writers, though the events were inspired by my family, they soon turned into another family, perhaps your family, and they began to tell me directly their griefs, their sins, their joys. There were full stops along the way (six months here, one year there) where I had to rest and wait long for the Holy Spirit to reveal to me what would ultimately happen to this beloved family. And for my own heart to heal. Oh, but what miracles happen in the waiting! I was shocked yet unsurprised by how God swooped this family up into His arms with his unfathomable love and mercy. This play became a prayer— for deliverance and conversion for them. For us all. –Fleur Alys Dobbins

FLEUR ALYS DOBBINS is an actress, singer, playwright, and composer. Under the banner of Apostle Theatre: Theatre for the Soul, her works are devoted to revealing God’s presence through art. Her play, Home, about a family coping with Alzheimer’s, was written as a prayer of deliverance and conversion. She is also the creator of Storytellers Rite, an immersive storytelling experience for seekers of creative exploration and sacred discovery into the path of joy, clarity, and becoming.

Fleur recently performed her one-woman musical Who’s My Girl? at the Fort Worth International Fringe Festival. She is the author of Hushabye, a sung-through musical about the shaping of a girl by one generational lie, and The Light of Kyle, a short story about a young boy who dies and goes on a thrilling journey to heaven. Her faith-filled articles can be read on her Substack, Little Yellow Bird and The Dreamer.

Fleur has performed on and off Broadway, in regional productions, TV, and independent films and has worked on new musicals in the recording studio, including The Sweet Potato Queens by Grammy Award–winner Melissa Manchester. In New York, she was seen as Lizzie in The Rainmaker at the Sheen Center and received Outstanding Actress for her performance in the Short Subject Play, Between Men, at the Midtown International Theatre Festival.

Fleur holds a BFA in acting from Southern Methodist University and a certificate of study in acting Shakespeare from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. fleuralysdobbins.com