After a six-year hiatus from the New York stage, Noah Galvin is delivering a dynamite performance in “The Reservoir,” an off-Broadway dramedy that explores alcoholism, aging and intergenerational relationships. Though the actor says the play “felt like the right challenge at the right time,” he had reservations about taking on a project in which several characters experience memory loss after losing his father, Austin, to Lewy body dementia in 2023.
“I had a lot of conversations around whether this was healthy for me to be doing,” Galvin told HuffPost. “Dealing with somebody going through a cognitive decline such as the one my father went through … is really tragic and really horrible and really awful. The way my family got through it was through laughter, humor, joy, celebration, music and all of the things that I felt jump off the page.”
He continued, “This play could so easily be a sort of ‘issue play,’ and ... I’m honestly bored of that. I just want to see great characters and delicious relationships that feel true to life. So I made the choice early on that this was going to be cathartic and healing for me, and it has been that tenfold.”
Directed by Shelley Butler, “The Reservoir” centers on Josh (played by Galvin), a young gay man who returns to his Colorado hometown while on an indefinite break from New York University amid a drinking bender. After a frosty welcome from his divorced mom (Heidi Armbruster), Josh takes steps to rebuild his life, starting with getting sober.
