The Heart at La Jolla
By Kate Kerrigan, Music and Lyrics by Anne Eisendrath and Ian Eisendrath
By: Sharon Eubanks - Sep 08, 2025
On a pristine sunlit Southern California morning, avid surfer Simon Lamar, 19 years old, is driving home after an exhilarating rush riding the waves.
At the same time in the local emergency room, doctors, nurses, medical staff hurry pass each other during the shift change. Electronic music thumps in the background, evoking sounds of the ocean, whirring hospital machinery, people moving with purpose.
Alas, tragedy strikes, Simon loses control of his car and he is brought unconscious into the ER. Two apparently parallel timelines of people’s lives are smashed together now and into the future.
So begins the La Jolla Playhouse production of the musical The Heart. The story tells what happens to Simon’s heart over the next 24 hours; from when Simon is declared brain dead to when his heart is transplanted into another individual.
Featuring a stellar ensemble cast, the play is driven by an intense electronic, pulsating score, evocative dance numbers and a set suggestive of a fast-moving video game; constant reminders that time is of the essence.
Simon was in prime physical condition when he was declared brain dead--making him a perfect organ donor.
Crucial to the plot and the intensity of the play, Simon is not a registered donor and the emotionally agonizing task of deciding whether to donate his organs falls to his divorced parents. As the hospital machinery keeps Simon in a state near death, the grieving parents confront issues of life and death. They don’t have much time, the music pulsates. The hospital staff have their own ways of dealing with tragedy. We see the buttoned-up physician, the ebullient surgeon, the nurse who insists on talking to Simon although he is brain dead. We see the transplant coordinator with negotiating skills worthy of any international diplomat guiding the parents through the decision-making process. All the while, the pulsating music is always there.
Who gets an organ once it becomes available? Fittingly, in a process overseen by a person who is also an avid video gamer, the musical number Strike a Match tells how a donor organ is matched to a recipient. Potential matches are made, calls go out, plans are canceled. Time is of the essence. Who gets Simon’s heart literally comes down to who was close enough to answer the phone when the call comes.
Written by Kate Kerrigan, with music and lyrics by Anne Eisendrath and Ian Eisendrath, the Heart is based on the novel, Réparer les Vivants by Maylis de Kerangal. In the LA Jolla Playhouse Production, over 24 hours, the heart of a person in the wrong place at the wrong time is connected to another person who was in the right place at the right time to answer the call. The Heart requires us to look at connections, what brings us together, and what it means to be part of a community.
Playing through October 5th. Tickets here.