Mosaic Theater Company's A Case for the Existence of God is a Must-See at Atlas Performing Arts Center

“A Case for the Existence of God,” now playing at Atlas Performing Arts Center in a production from Mosaic Theater Company, is one of those quiet, deeply human plays that sneaks up on you. On its surface, it’s just two guys talking in a small office. Over 100 intermissionless minutes, that simple setup becomes an emotional roller coaster about friendship, fatherhood, and the terrifying vulnerability of trying to build a life for the people you love most. The show runs at Atlas through December 14, 2025, giving DC audiences a chance to see why so many critics are singling it out as a must-see show.

A Case for the Existence of God presented by Mosaic Theater Company at Atlas Performing Arts Center

Samuel D. Hunter’s 2022 drama brings together two single dads who, on paper, have almost nothing in common. Keith is a Black, gay mortgage broker who is financially stable but emotionally scarred from growing up feeling isolated and judged. Ryan is a white, straight factory worker facing divorce and money troubles. They are the same age, and both have one-year-old daughters, but nearly every other demographic detail—race, class, education, sexual orientation—marks them as opposites.

Their connection begins in the most everyday way: Ryan comes to Keith’s office seeking a loan so he can buy a small piece of land once owned by his family, a place he hopes will become a permanent home for him and his daughter. At the same time, Keith is navigating the foster-to-adopt process and is terrified that a relative of his baby’s birth mother will block the adoption because he is gay. As the meetings go on, the paperwork and bank-speak fade into the background, and what emerges is a bond between two men who slowly realize they share a very specific kind of fear and sadness about losing their children. Critics have been especially struck by the way the play allows that bond to grow in tiny, believable increments, rather than through big speeches or melodramatic twists.



This production has been widely praised for its performances, which are very much the heart of the evening. Lee Osorio’s Ryan arrives in the office anxious, defensive, and visibly worn down by life, while Jaysen Wright’s Keith initially presents as calm, polished, and in control. As the walls between them fall, both actors are given rich moments of humor, frustration, and raw confession, and local reviewers have noted how the pair turn this two-hander into a full, lived-in world. Their scenes together become a showcase in how small shifts in posture, tone, or eye contact can signal changing trust, resentment, or care. Several critics have remarked that watching these two men learn how to truly see each other is where the production finds its deepest power.

The staging itself underscores just how confined and high-stakes their situation feels. Set almost entirely in Keith’s sleek, glass-surrounded office cube, the design creates the sense that both men are on display and never fully safe from scrutiny. Scenic designer Nadir Bey’s angular set and the shifting light that surrounds it subtly mark the passage of time and the emotional beats of the story, while the props—a baby monitor on the desk, a computer, scattered paperwork—keep the daughters’ presence and their precarious futures firmly in the audience’s mind. Reviewers have highlighted how, over the course of the evening, that office gradually transforms from a sterile workplace into something more symbolic, mirroring the way their relationship moves from transactional to deeply personal.

What many critics have responded to most is the play’s emotional arc. The conversations between Keith and Ryan are often funny, especially when they stumble over class differences in language or outlook, but beneath the jokes is a constant awareness of economic precarity and social prejudice. The show explores how systems—banks, courts, and family structures—can feel rigged against people who are just trying to be good parents. Yet for all its hard truths, the production never sinks into despair. Multiple reviews point to the final stretch of the play, including a last-scene revelation described as a beautifully executed theatrical surprise, as both devastating and unexpectedly hopeful, leaving audiences with the sense that grace can appear in the most ordinary rooms between people who choose to care for one another.

Running about an hour and forty minutes without intermission, “A Case for the Existence of God” is intimate, intense, and tightly focused. Rather than offering a literal argument about religion, the play builds its “case” by letting us watch two men risk honesty in a world that has not always rewarded their openness. The result, in this Atlas Performing Arts Center staging, is a quietly shattering evening that has been called touching, powerful, and highly recommended by local reviewers across the board.

For DC theatregoers looking for a moving, contemporary drama about fathers, friendship, and finding meaning in difficult times, A Case for the Existence of God production at Atlas is well worth catching before it closes on December 14, 2025.