carol torian
FICTION WRITER. PLAYWRIGHT. ARTIVIST.
THE WANING HOURS by
CAROL TORIAN
IT’S A WRAP! Thank you to everyone who came out to support the October 2025 run of The Waning Hours at William Peace University Leggett Theatre!
Alzheimer’s takes center stage in The Waning Hours. After more than four decades of marriage, Lorna Bray Tucker’s husband Bernard leaves her for a younger lover. Lorna is still reeling from the divorce when she starts down a path of irreversible memory loss. Once an aspiring singer and amateur photographer, she now drifts between the present day and the past as her mind is ravaged by worsening Alzheimer’s disease. Lorna is present, yet absent as her memories become tangled and lost, and those closest to her struggle to come to terms with what is happening.
Featuring an African-American cast and directed by Terra Hodge, The Waning Hours is a series of vignettes that attempt to mirror the thought process of someone who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The play is set entirely in Lorna's kitchen—the one place in a house where time matters most. And it here that we discover the songs that serve as an enduring reminder of who Lorna once was and who she might have become if she'd made different choices. This emotionally-charged play is tinged with disappointment and loss, but woven with hints of humor, drawing us deeper and deeper into Lorna's mind.
“Writing the waning hours caused me to consider many questions: When must independence ultimately be curtailed? What are our responsibilities to our elders? How does serious illness, dementia, and incapacitation shape the family dynamic?”
— Carol Torian, playwright
“Every 65 seconds, someone in the United States develops the disease.”
— Data Source: The Alzheimer’s Association
“aLZHEIMER’S IS MORE THAN MEMORY LOSS—iT IS identity, change, relationships, AND resilience.”
— Carol Torian, playwright
About CAROL
Carol Torian is a playwright, fiction writer, visual artist, and gallerist from North Carolina. Productions of her work have included Cracked Grain for Cary Playwrights’ Forum and Ruby Slipper Fringe Festival; The Waning Hours (Staged Reading) for Ruby Slipper Fringe Festival and Sips & Scripts and the Burning Coal New Works Series; The Traditionalists for Cary Playwrights’ Forum and the Women’s Theatre Festival; and Previously Owned for The Flying Embers Winter Pajama Party and the Raleigh Film & Art Festival. Carol’s work crisscrosses racial, cultural, and socioeconomic boundaries to promote understanding, appreciation and awareness. She is a graduate of Meredith College.
