Hearts Left Open
- Written by Lee-Anna Semenyna
- Sold Out Run at the Edmonton Fringe Festival 2025
- Selected for the Walterdale Theatre’s From Cradle to Stage New Works Festival 2025
- Finalist Selection for the International Script Competition 2025
The Story
Two strangers. One hospital hallway.
Over twelve months of grief, laughter, and impossible choices, they find the kind of friendship that saves lives.
Hearts Left Open is raw, intimate, and unflinching—a story about showing up when hope runs out.
Bring tissues. Stay for the truth.
Why I Wrote It
I didn’t set out to write this play. When I asked the universe for guidance on what to write, the answer came fast—and clear:
Write about your family. Write about childhood leukemia.
To which I promptly replied: Absolutely not.
And then I heard, with full sass and cosmic eye-rolls: “Don’t ask for advice if you’re not going to take it.”
So I sat down. And I wrote.
What poured out wasn’t just my story—it was ours. It was the story of caregivers and chosen family. Of sitting in sterile rooms and holding on to hope with trembling hands. Of laughter where you least expect it. Of love that doesn’t flinch. Of grief that reshapes you—and grace that arrives anyway.
My Connection
This play is based on true events from my life. My youngest brother was diagnosed with leukemia when he was two years old. The next seven years of our lives were hospitals and medications, cafeteria food and sterile halls.
He went into remission. It came back. He was put on the bone marrow transplant list.
His story is Shelby’s story. Beth is based on my mom. Gail, on the friends I remember her leaning on. Brayden is every kid we met. Every loss. Every flicker of hope in a ward that taught me how grief can be slow and loud and full of love.
But as this play came to life, I realized: this isn’t just their story. It’s mine. It’s the anger I didn’t have words for. The helplessness that no one knew how to hold. It’s the things I didn’t say, and the things I got in trouble for saying. It’s the support we needed that didn’t exist. The truth we carried in silence because no one knew what to do with a furious nine-year-old whose brother was dying.
This play is full of things I didn’t know I still needed to say. And now… I’m saying them.