UK Premiere of Dog Mom Comes to Southwark Playhouse Borough This Autumn

This autumn, American comedy Dog Mom will make its UK premiere as America’s largest South Asian theatre company, EnActe Arts brings Tate Elizabeth Hanyok’s offbeat comedy about reinvention and unexpected companionship to London’s Southwark Playhouse Borough.

In this new London production, Dog Mom follows Sarita – an Indian American woman in her 50s trying to rebuild her life after a divorce. Newly living alone in a cramped Brooklyn apartment, having left both her marriage and suburban New Jersey behind, she is determined to embrace independence and start over on her own terms: organised, controlled and without complications.

The last thing she wants is responsibility for anyone or anything else, especially a dog. But when she reluctantly takes in an older stray for what is a ‘temporary’ arrangement, Sarita is dragged into the alien world of dog parks, intrusive owners and a relentlessly affectionate dog that is completely, unapologetically obsessed with her and determined to break down Sarita’s emotional walls. Along the way, Sarita finds unexpected community in her outspoken lesbian neighbour Nell, and fellow dog owners, discovering new friendships just when she needs them most.

Dog Mom embraces a playful theatrical language that sees human actors stepping into the roles of both people and dogs.

Rather than depicting dogs through puppets or using hyper-realistic animal costumes, Dog Mom places human performers at the centre of its canine world. Actors embody the animal’s instincts, emotional logic, unfiltered devotion and boundless enthusiasm with all the chaotic energy and lovable weirdness people recognise in their own pets.

The result is a heightened theatrical world where canine behaviour becomes a funny, strange and unexpectedly moving lens through which divorce, vulnerability and human connection are explored. As Sarita’s resistance begins to crumble, the play explores what it means to start again in midlife, rebuild trust after heartbreak and discover companionship in the places you least expect it.

Writer Tate Elizabeth Hanyok says “Dog Mom” was born from a desire to create shared laughter and connection during a moment of profound social fragmentation. In increasingly fraught times, the play looks toward one of the few remaining points of near-universal affection – our relationships with our pets – as a way to restore community and mutual recognition.

The bond between people and their pets offers a rare common language, and comedy became the vehicle through which that language could invite audiences into collective release, empathy, and belonging.

A secondary and equally vital inspiration was the lack of middle-aged women in contemporary comedic storytelling. As a writer committed to female-driven comedy, I sought to centre a woman in the midst of a midlife reckoning – an experience often rendered invisible, flattened, or treated with shame.

The play also engages with the growing reality that many women do not become mothers, not as a failure or deviation, but as a lived truth deserving of dignity and narrative space. “Dog Mom” aims to meet that reality with humour rather than judgment, and with compassion rather than correction – asserting that womanhood, fulfilment, and worth are not singular paths, but many”

The playwright has also worked with the production team to subtly adapt aspects of the show to reflect Sarita’s British South Asian identity, bringing additional cultural specificity to its exploration of family expectations, belonging and life after divorce.

Produced by EnActe Arts, Dog Mom forms part of the company’s ongoing commitment to creating greater space for South Asian performers and perspectives within contemporary theatre. In 12 years, EnActe has grown to be America’s largest South Asian – and its only national South Asian – theatre company, with over 40 productions, 80% of which are New Works.

The production is directed by Ajay Chowdhury, whose work spans theatre, literature and technology. Alongside his work as Artistic Director of Rented Space Theatre Company, Chowdhury is the bestselling author of the Kamil Rahman crime series and was involved in the early development of music recognition app Shazam.

‘The treat we all need’, ‘Laugh-out-loud funny and inspiring story’, ‘Sweet, relatable, and so so lovable’ – Broadway World (Californian production of Dog Mom, staged at the B St. Theatre).

Dog Mom is coming to Southwark Playhouse Borough, London on Wednesday 14 October to Saturday 7 November 2026.

For more information visit: southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/dog-mom/