Former hospice chaplain weaves end-of-life stories into a musical comedy

After a long day at work as a hospice chaplain, Benjamin Kintisch would sit in his car and think about the stories his patients told, the questions they asked.

There was a rhythm to the anecdotes — the tears, the laughter, the nostalgia. The words the patients used were different, but their fears struck the same chord: Why is this happening to me? What will the world look like when I’m gone?

“These stories I’m hearing,” Kintisch told his wife on a drive home one day, “I think they want to be songs.”

“Get writing,” she replied.

Fast-forward about a decade, and the result is Kintisch’s 16-song musical comedy, “Life Review: The Hospice Musical,” playing for one night only in Baltimore this Saturday. The performance at the Johns Hopkins University’s Arellano Theater will double as a live album recording featuring an ensemble from the Peabody Institute.

“The topic is a difficult topic,” Kintisch, who lives in Columbia, said in a recent interview. “The themes are challenging, but I do it with humor. ... My hope is that between the poetic lyrics, the stirring music, the great comedy and dialogue, people can be open to facing this tough stuff.”

Kintisch plays the musical’s main character, Rabbi David Goodman, who is navigating his first year as a hospice chaplain. Kintisch draws inspiration from his own journey, which started in New Jersey in 2014. He worked at a suburban synagogue with an older congregation, so he decided to pursue clinical pastoral education to help with bereavement and end-of-life care.

He borrowed the name of the musical, “Life Review,” from the interview techniques he learned in the program.

Kintisch is joined by four actors who play hospice patients of varied backgrounds and ages, bonded only by their time in palliative care. Not-so-spoiler alert: They all die at the end.

The opening number gives away the ending in a “funny, vaudeville-style” song, Kintisch said. It’s “a little bit of a warning that you might come to grow fond of, even fall in love with, some of these fictional characters, and we’re going to break your heart by the end of the play, because that’s kind of how it works when you work in hospice care.”

The musical takes place over a six-month period; people typically enter hospice when they have six months or fewer to live. Each patient wrestles with their own mortality through music that mirrors the eras in which they grew up. A centenarian sings a gospel-style ballad, while a 50-something woman performs a song inspired by Carole King.

There are some serious, heart-wrenching moments, Kintisch said, like the ballad “Will It Still Snow?” It was the first song he wrote for the musical, drawing from conversations he’d had with patients about the passage of time and how life keeps going after they die. There are usually some tears shed in the audience for this one, he said.

But for every sad moment, there’s a reminder that life — and hospice — can be silly and fun. There’s a “raunchy” but “playful” R&B number in which the hospice patients lust after their care staff, Kintisch said.

“It’s a little naughty, but it’s also acknowledging that dying people are people too, and therefore they still have a sex drive,” he said.

Kintisch spent years perfecting the musical, which he has performed as both a one-man cabaret and a full theater show, including one performance in Columbia shortly before the pandemic. He and his family moved to Maryland in 2017 after Kintisch got a job as cantor of a local Jewish congregation.

He currently works as a music teacher at Friends Community School in College Park. Though he isn’t a practicing hospice chaplain at the moment, he’s interested in returning to the field in the near future.

“Hospice and death and dying — it’s not as scary as you might think,” Kintisch said. “We do a lot of laughing and dancing and singing, more so than happens in a real-life hospice, but we are trying to reduce some of the ick factors, some of the scariness around death and dying.”

In addition to the five cast members, there are five instrumentalists in the Peabody ensemble. The team also includes a music director/conductor and a music consultant, as well as an associate producer, Dave “Paco” Abraham.

“Death has always been in the background within someone’s story, but rarely has it been the story,” Abraham said. “And as difficult a topic as it can be, it is the most universal thing. We are all born, we will all die, and we are all connected to it at a different time in our lives.”

The musical is about 90 minutes long. Kintisch declined to say how many tickets have been sold so far, but the theater can hold an audience of 140.

After it ends, the team is hosting a dessert reception where attendees can participate in group discussions about dark humor, mortality, religious experiences and the challenges of aging.

“Nothing’s linear about grief, so it can all just come back to you very quickly,” Abraham said. “I think it’s really interesting that someone could probably watch the show and not even realize the feelings that may come up, but those are OK. They’re worth exploring, and I think it’s done in a very respectful, loving and fun way.”

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, and the performance is at 7 p.m. Tickets are available online and start at $23.18.

The Banner publishes news stories about people who have recently died in Maryland. If your loved one has passed and you would like to inquire about an obituary, please contact obituary@thebanner.com. If you are interested in placing a paid death notice, please contact groupsales@thebanner.com or visit this website.