“Shelter Inn Place” Takes Off-Broadway By Storm
Ego Actus Theatre Company presents playwright Henry Feldman’s raucous family comedy about a Category 3 hurricane and the characters taking shelter in a B&B where the real storm is brewing. Joan Kane directs the production at Theatre Row, Sept. 18 to Oct. 4.
| 10 Sep 2026 | 01:12
The cast of "Shelter Inn Place” at Theatre Row on West 42nd Street: Front row (L-R): Haley Zale, Mike Roche. Back row (L-R): Alyssa Simon, Aaron Lamm and Martin Revere. (
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Award-winning actor Mike Roche plays Frank Bennett, the innkeeper in "Shelter Inn Place" who wants “his turn” to live his dream. A hurricane forces him to shelter in place with people who want him to put their needs first. (
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"Shelter Inn Place” award-winning director Joan Kane is founding Artistic Director of Ego Actus and one of our own having graduated from the High School of Performing Arts, studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner, and earned an MFA in Directing from The New School. (
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”Shelter Inn Place” author Henry Feldman is an actor-turned-playwright who spent 40 years in Houston and now splits his time between Cold Spring, NY and NYC. He studied acting and directing at the University of Houston after getting his engineering degree from Rice University. So far, his plays are all comedies. (
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When it rains, it pours.
Hurricane Claudia is heading toward a Pelican Bay B&B. Its owner, Frank Bennett, played by Drama Desk-winning actor Mike Roche, is preparing to both evacuate and sell the business, then start life anew.
But what is said about plans? You make them, and God laughs.
Frank’s are disrupted by a mandatory shelter-in-place order and unexpected guests: his suicidal father, George (Martin Revere), arrives under the guise of helping; his ex-wife, Mildred (Haley Zale), seeks refuge after being dumped by her younger boyfriend; their son, Sam (Aaron Lamm), shows up to reunite his divorced parents so his fiancée will believe he comes from “a good home”; and TV psychologist Heidi Murphy (Alyssa Simon) checks in for a physician-heal-thyself sojourn.
The idea for the play aligns with the way author Henry Feldman works. “I grab little tidbits from my life, put them in a blender, and then chop them up.” This time the tidbits came from living through a 2008 hurricane in Houston, TX, which coincided with personal upheaval: his mother had passed away, his father was grieving, and his twins went off to college, but their needs were still ever-present. “I started feeling like this was a three-generation play.”
The show’s title came from the non-stop and inescapable warnings to shelter in place. “[The TV commentator] drove me bonkers.”
As Feldman created Frank’s “sandwich generation” story, he also included a flamboyant ex-wife character, brought a stranger who just needed a room into the mix, and suddenly, “The chaos inside matched the hurricane on the outside.”
Will Frank start taking care of everyone else as usual, or finally decide to take care of himself?
Award-winning director Joan Kane says, “For me, what this play is about is a liberation of Frank. And all the other characters in this play are also liberated. But it starts with him.”
She also discussed the challenges of directing an ensemble cast. “The one word I like to operate from is respect. Everybody has their own way of doing what they do. I formed a theater company called Ego Actus; it’s Latin for “my way,” meaning everybody comes to the process doing whatever they do and respecting everybody else’s process. The biggest challenge is to make sure everybody is in the same place. I have to make sure it’s all unified. That everybody is telling the same story.”
The lead storyteller in the play is Roche’s Frank. The veteran actor of stage and screen says, “This is a great comedy, but underneath that, there’s also great heart.” He describes Frank as a striver trying to do the right thing, but things/people always get in his way. It also doesn’t help that the innkeeper is a people-pleaser.
“I think that people can see themselves in Frank,” says Roche. “Everyone has had something they wanted to do, then didn’t act on it. Frank realizes he’s spent all this time doing things for other people and says, ‘Now it’s my turn.’ He’s going to get his dream. I think it’s inspiring.”
The concept of getting one’s turn often eludes most people. After experiencing Frank’s journey, the takeaway for the audience, according to Roche, is, “Life is short. If you want to do something, do it. Try it. If you don’t like it, stop doing it. At least you tried. If you do like it, you’ll have longer in your life to do it.”
Feldman added that you know it’s time to start putting yourself first when “You reach a point where you’re confronted with the step you won’t do, where the next ask is one too many, and then you just sort of back off. You just shut it all down. And that’s what Frank does.”
Kane’s view focused on the audience leaving the theater and contemplating the pathos of the unlived life. “Frank had this life that he loved, but he gave it up for the woman he loved. He’s now finding his soul. You have to be happy. You have to live your dream.”
”Shelter Inn Place” at Theatre Row, Theater #5, 410 W. 42nd St., Sept. 18 to Oct. 4. Tue.-Sat. at 8:00 p.m., Sun. at 3:00 p.m. Tickets available at https://shelterinnplace.com/
Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel “The Last Single Woman In New York City.”
”Frank realizes he’s spent all this time doing things for other people and says, ‘Now it’s my turn.’” Mike Roche