Butch Maxwell Playwright
Remains by Butch Maxwell: a winter cabin table with a box marked Private, a Cedar Falls High School yearbook, letters, a squirrel mug, and lantern overlooking a frozen lake.

A full-length play by Butch Maxwell.

Remains

Every family has an inheritance. Not every inheritance is a gift.

Running time: approximately 95 minutes. Cast: 2 women, 2 men. Setting: a remote lake cabin in early winter, 2011. In submission and currently available for staged readings and production.

“
Some families inherit property.
Others inherit unfinished conversations.
BMax

Synopsis

After the accidental deaths of their parents, four adult step-siblings gather at a remote lake cabin to divide an inheritance they barely shared.

Boxes are opened. Old wounds surface faster than old furniture.

Maggie arrives believing enough organization can keep grief under control. By morning, even her carefully labeled system begins to come apart.

As winter weather closes the roads and the night grows longer, the practical work of sorting an inheritance becomes something far more difficult: deciding which stories deserve to survive, and which were never true to begin with.

The Dramatic Engine

The evening begins as practical work: sorting, labeling, deciding what stays and what goes.

Each object redirects the conversation. A yearbook revises one memory. A stack of letters exposes another. The box marked Private waits at the edge of the room until leaving it closed becomes impossible.

By the time the storm closes the road, the family is no longer dividing possessions. They are testing the stories that made them a family—and discovering how differently each of them remembers the same life.

Recovered from the Cabin

Evidence from a family that never finished talking.

A 1970–71 Cedar Falls High School yearbook.

1970–71 Cedar Falls Yearbook

The story everyone thought they knew.

An aged Valentine card dated February 14, 1972.

Valentine — February 14, 1972

Some letters arrive forty years late.

A worn brown cardigan folded on a wooden surface.

A Father’s Cardigan

Grief often smells like laundry.

A handwritten spreadsheet tracking squirrels.

Squirrel Spreadsheet

Every problem deserved a humane solution.

A wall of color-coded Post-it notes.

Maggie’s Post-it Wall

Order lasts exactly as long as certainty.

A remote cabin beside a winter lake after a storm.

Performance Design

The room keeps score.

Every object carries two histories: the one it preserves and the one it conceals.

A box marked Private sits at the edge of the room, ignorable until it isn’t. Inside: a yearbook, a stack of letters, and a story the parents never told because the children never knew to ask.

Naturalistic sound and almost imperceptible changes in winter light allow the cabin to register what the family cannot yet say. The space should feel lived-in rather than arranged: weathered wood, weak warmth, and the occasional sound of Gerald the squirrel in the attic.

By dawn, the room should look as though the truth has passed through it.

Production Information & Script

Bring Remains to the stage.

If you’re considering Remains for your season, you’ll find complete production information, cast details, and script request information on New Play Exchange (NPX).

View on NPX →
“Order lasts exactly as long as certainty.”
BMax