Role Type: Emotional Anchor
Occupation: Former stay-at-home wife and mother
Health Situation: High blood pressure, headache, nausea, exhaustion

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Ruth is the spiritual and emotional center of the play. She has spent most of her life caring for her family, raising children, cooking, cleaning, and holding her household together while often ignoring her own needs. Now that she is older, her body is forcing her to pay attention. She comes to the ER because her blood pressure still feels high even after taking her medicine.

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Ruth is gentle, wise, observant, and faith-filled. She does not speak just to speak. When she talks, it usually carries weight. She understands what it means to wait — waiting on doctors, results, answers, healing, family, and God. Her song about waiting should feel like a lifetime of quiet pressure finally being released.

Age: 66
Role Type: Comic Relief with Emotional Depth
Occupation: Former beauty salon owner
Personal Situation: Widow, Ruth’s younger sister

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Ebba Lee is Ruth’s loud, funny, protective younger sister. She is not the patient, but she refuses to leave Ruth alone. She uses humor as a shield and fills every quiet space with jokes because silence makes her uncomfortable. After losing her husband, Ruth became one of the closest people in her life, which explains why she is so protective.

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Ebba Lee brings energy to the waiting room. She says what other people are thinking but are too polite to say. She can make the audience laugh, but underneath the jokes is fear — fear of losing Ruth, fear of aging, fear of hospitals, and fear of being alone.

Age: 24
Role Type: Young Mother
Occupation: Daycare assistant
Situation: Six months pregnant, experiencing early labor complications
Relationship: Boyfriend is Dan Ross; he dies in a car accident while trying to get to her

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Crystal is young, scared, and trying to stay calm while something is clearly wrong with her pregnancy. She keeps calling her boyfriend because she does not want to go through this alone. Her story becomes one of the play’s most heartbreaking arcs when the audience learns he died on the way to the hospital.

After giving birth early, she is left grieving and afraid of raising her baby alone. Ruth and Ebba visiting her gives the play a needed moment of community and tenderness.

Age: 30
Role Type: Working-Class Voice
Occupation: Works two jobs; possible call center worker and overnight warehouse worker
Health Situation: Dizziness from exhaustion, stress, and burnout

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Monica is sarcastic, angry, tired, and overworked. She comes into the ER dizzy after pushing her body too far. She works two jobs to make ends meet, and it is just her. She is not soft at first. She has attitude because life has been hard and she is tired of pretending she is okay.

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Monica adds a younger adult woman’s perspective to the older women’s conversation. She is not elderly, but she already feels worn down. She knows Denzel from school, which gives her a natural connection to the hospital staff side of the story. Her song, “Running on Empty,” should reveal what her sarcasm hides — she is exhausted physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Age: 32
Role Type: Mother in Crisis
Occupation: Medical billing representative
Family: Single mother of Ryan and Layla
Situation: Her daughter Layla is seriously ill with a high fever and worsening symptoms

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Amanda is a tired, frightened mother trying to stay strong while her daughter gets worse in front of her. She has been waiting for hours and feels ignored by the system. Her frustration is not rudeness — it is fear. She is doing her best to advocate for her child while also managing her son Ryan, hunger, exhaustion, and panic.

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Amanda’s emotional arc is one of a mother slowly losing control in a place where she expected help. Her song “Please Be Okay” should feel like a prayer from a mother who would trade places with her child if she could.

​Age: 27

Role Type: Complex Patient

Occupation: Unemployed

Current Situation:

Homeless and living between shelters, abandoned buildings, friends' couches, and occasionally the streets. Jackie arrives at the ER claiming severe pain and anxiety. Some staff recognize her because she has visited multiple times seeking medication, but what many people don't realize is that her addiction began after being prescribed pain medication years earlier following an injury.

 

Jackie struggles with untreated mental illness, including depression, anxiety, and possible bipolar disorder. She often self-medicates to numb emotional pain, grief, and trauma. Because she has been dismissed, judged, and turned away so many times, she enters every room defensive and ready for a fight.

Age: 72
Role Type: Elder Voice
Occupation: Former school cafeteria worker
Health Situation: Diabetes complications, sore on toe, fear of possibly losing her foot

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Bertha May is an older patient who has been sitting in the ER for hours. She is honest, blunt, and lived-in. She represents the older generation dealing with multiple health issues, medication changes, side effects, diabetes, high blood pressure, and the fear of losing independence.

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Her story about the sore on her toe becoming worse gives her real stakes. She is not just there for conversation — she is scared. Doctors have warned her that if she does not start taking better care of herself, she could lose her foot. That gives her humor and bluntness a deeper layer.

Age: 35
Role Type: Compassionate Nurse
Occupation: ER nurse
Family: Has children
Situation: Balances motherhood with long hospital shifts

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Tammy is the warmer nurse. She is tired but still tries to be gentle with patients. She understands Amanda’s fear, Crystal’s panic, and the pressure on staff. She is also a mother, which makes the child emergency hit harder.

Age: 39
Role Type: System Pressure
Occupation: ER physician
Family: Divorced with three children
Situation: Overworked doctor managing impossible patient loads and no open beds

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Dr. Johnson is exhausted, blunt, and constantly moving. He is not uncaring — he is overwhelmed. His long hours, stress, and commitment to the job contributed to his divorce and limited time with his children. He represents the cost of being a doctor inside a strained system.

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He may snap under pressure, but he should also show regret when his words come out wrong. He is human, not a machine.

Age: 24
Role Type: Hopeful Future Doctor
Occupation: ER tech / pre-med student
Situation: Works in the hospital while preparing for the MCAT and trying to pay for school

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Denzel represents hope inside the healthcare system. He sees the flaws but still wants to care. He believes becoming a doctor means remembering what it feels like when people are forgotten in waiting rooms. He also knows the reality — student loans, years of school, stress, long hours, and the danger of burnout.

His connection with Monica gives him personal grounding outside the hospital. His conversations with Dr. Johnson, Jackie, Ethan, and Bradley help show different perspectives on healthcare.