WEATHER FORECAST: FUNNY AND SUNNY
WITH A CHANCE OF ARMAGEDDON

In recent years, I have watched a wave of productions by Millennial and Gen Z artists who are, quite understandably, petrified by the future and by the ecological catastrophe we have handed them. Francesca Moody Productions, the British powerhouse behind two of the most successful TV adaptations of the last decade, Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, is here to remind us that fortunately these generations have kept a keen sense of humor. Their latest work, Weather Girl, makes its U.S. debut at St. Ann’s Warehouse after a successful UK run, and it is an amusing one-woman dark comedy marathon starring the magnetic Julia McDermott. She plays Stacey, a California weather reporter in her late 20s who shifts from chirpy professionalism to full-blown existential unraveling every few minutes.

Playwright Brian Watkins writes in the program “Why do we wreck the places we love?” as the taproot of the play. He is talking about California, once a bountiful, heavenly place now plagued by fires, draughts, and poverty, all because of greed. He delivers an unhinged monologue that begins as lighthearted sketch comedy but then nosedives into climate dread, media absurdity, economic despair, and personal disintegration, revealing an urge to make the invisible visible, to bring the inside outside.

A house burns just out of frame and Stacey, on location, melting under lights and the large wildfire’s heat, plasters on a smile as her makeup slides south, and sweat pools in her spandex. A family may be dying behind her, but the anchors are still cooing over a baby hippo born at the zoo. Mic in hand, she presses her earpiece waiting for her cue, and when they finally cut to her, the forced small talk with her colleagues (“save me some casserole!”,) juxtaposed with what is supposed to be a horrific scene happening behind her, reveals her (and our) attempt to reconcile two irreconcilable realities: the hypocritical, artificial broadcast banter and the very real drama.

McDermott embodies the ideal blonde TV doll and, under the direction of Tyne Rafaeli, she pivots seamlessly from sitcom-bright to soul-bare. She flirts with the camera (the audience) and she confesses to it. Meanwhile, the production team makes good use of minimal props and sharp visual cues to amplify every emotional beat: Isabella Byrd’s set and lighting design guides us from the fake appearance of a TV studio into the fractured mind of a woman unraveling; Kieran Lucas’s sound design keeps the tension and the illusion disturbingly real; Rachel Dainer-Best nails the television look with an unsophisticated costume for Stacey, bright, tight, and uncomfortable. But it’s McDermott who brings the storm, channeling every shift in tone with a lot of energy.

Some narrative threads like Stacey’s relationship with her homeless mother, the bizarre run-in with a tech-bro, and the surreal “magic” in the finale could benefit from further development because they feel unfinished. Still, Weather Girl is a deft balancing act of biting humor and genuine emotional weight. Watkins’s script is deceptively simple but it succeeds creating a mood that is both funny and horrifying; Stacey is our collective denial and then she slowly shatters in front of us as denial should. Walking away, I thought that Millennials and Gen Z are not jaded, they are lucid, they see the system for what it is. And maybe the most hopeful thing they can do right now is refuse to play along, keep fighting back, and keep writing plays like this one.

photos by Emilio Madrid

Weather Girl
Francesca Moody Productions
St. Ann’s Warehouse, 45 Water St in Brooklyn (on the waterfront in Brooklyn Bridge Park)
ends on October 12, 2025
for tickets, visit St. Anne’s WarehouseTheater Review: WEATHER GIRL (St. Ann’s Warehouse)