- Playwright K.E. Mullins will perform the play "Napkins," about Alzheimer's and family, three times at the 2026 Elgin Fringe Festival in Illinois.
- Mullins has raised $2,100 of a $2,800 GoFundMe goal to support her six-person cast's travel to Illinois for the festival.
Gainesville playwright K.E. Mullins will travel with a local cast to Illinois on Wednesday to perform three showings of “Napkins” at the 2026 Elgin Fringe Festival.
The play focuses on family and the impacts of Alzheimer’s Disease on an aging parent. Mullins loosely based the script on her own experiences dealing with her mother, Lillie Reese, who had the disease before passing.
Mullins said her mother always set the table for meals, folding napkins for each place setting. After Reese entered a nursing home, Mullins said she would still find napkins and fold them as she had for decades while preparing for dinner.
The play touches on the confusing instances that can come with Alzheimer’s Disease, with one scene involving the Mom character getting lost and stopping in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot, unsure how to return home.
“Napkins” premiered at the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center in August, and Mullins said she received positive feedback from the 80-member audience.
“I would hope that they leave with a good feeling if they’re going through that same situation. Something they can relate to, you know, encourage people that are going through that same situation, and not to give up hope, basically.”
Mullins started writing the play in 2024 and finished it in time to submit it to the Hippodrome Theatre New Works Festival, where it was named one of five semifinalists. She later submitted “Napkins” to the Elgin Fringe Festival, where it rose from the top of the waitlist into the festival lineup after other productions dropped out.
Mullins started a GoFundMe to help the six-person cast get to Illinois and has raised $2,100 of the $2,800 goal.
Before “Napkins,” Mullins wrote “Single Black Female in the Navy” and saw it selected for the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival. Mullins coordinated with Acrosstown Repertory Theatre, where the play was also performed, and Christina Palacio to gather actors and direct the performance.
Mullins began by writing fiction and nonfiction before turning to plays. She said Palacio has been a mentor in theater production and an “editing angel” who is always on her shoulder when she writes.
“I originally wrote that you can see the granules in the tea,” Mullins said. “[Palacio] said the people in the audience cannot see the granules. I’m like, ‘I didn’t think about it like that,'” Mullins said.
Mullins also wrote a 10-minute, one-woman production, “Flying Waffle,” based on her experience running with a friend who was training for a triathlon.
After the Elgin Fringe Festival, she said she plans to have more Gainesville performances of “Napkins” that locals can attend. In the meantime, she’s still writing, juggling projects and submissions for potential future productions that could come to a stage near you.