The door opens to a quiet house.

No footsteps down the hallway. No voice calling from the next room. 

Even for a mother who craves a moment of peace from a busy life, this type of silence doesn’t feel quite right. 

At first, it’s easy to explain away.

“My daughter’s late,” Nancy Shirley said. “She stopped somewhere. She’ll be back.”

But as minutes stretch and certainty fades, the pressure of a worried mother begins to emerge. After time passes, and her gut feeling deepens, one thought begins to take hold: she’s not coming home. 

In Springs Ensemble Theatre’s new play, “Frozen,” the instant a mother realizes her daughter is missing becomes the beginning of a 20-year-long story.

In fragments of time, memory and grief, a horrific crime is pieced together through the lives of three people: a psychiatrist, a mother and a man. 

Nancy, played by Jane Fromme, moves through time in pieces, from the moment her daughter goes missing through the years that follow. 

Capturing both the haunting uncertainty of not knowing and the emotional reckoning that comes decades later when the truth is revealed, her story unfolds through woven-together pieces of the past and present. 

Played by Steve Emily, the man responsible for the crime, Ralph, traces the aftermath of his actions with unsettling questions of accountability and remorse. 

Then there is Dr. Agnetha Gottmundsdottir, portrayed by Desiree Myers, a psychiatrist who travels to study Ralph, attempting to understand the mind behind the violence and where, or if, forgiveness fits into it.

Matt Radcliffe, director and president of Springs Ensemble Theatre, said the psychiatrist wrestles with a central debate, questioning whether violent acts are rooted in evil or something else entirely: “The difference between a crime of illness and a crime of evil,” Gottmundsdottir argues, “is a difference between a sin and a symptom.”

“The heart of the play is really about how we deal with forgiveness,” Radcliffe said. “How do we deal with understanding the incomprehensible — a horrific crime that is senseless and devastating? What happens after that? Who do we become?”

Yet questions like those hang in the air long after the curtains close.

Does forgiveness come with the truth, or does the truth make it impossible to forgive?

“Her anxiety about the future is keeping her from being in the moment,” Fromme said. “Nancy has to process that this wasn’t her fault, even though she’s her mother. She wants to control and protect her child, and when something happens, she can’t. It’s about processing what went wrong and if it can ever feel right again.”

For Fromme, that emotional tension is what makes the story resonate far beyond the stage, she said.

“I think anyone who’s had any close relationship, whether it is a parent or child, can certainly relate,” Fromme said. “Your biggest fear is that there’s a person you love and are there to support and protect, but you weren’t there at the moment they needed you. It’s a very raw story and a very dark truth.” 

“Frozen” will run April 2 through April 19 at Springs Ensemble Theatre in Old Colorado City, offering what Radcliffe describes as an “emotionally raw and theatrical” experience that invites viewers to sit with difficult questions rather than look away.

“The daughter is a stand-in for any missing child, but she’s also a metaphor for all the other things,” he said. “Like, what are the things that are missing in our lives that are causing us grief? How are we looking through that ourselves? In the wake of a tragedy like that, how do we find forgiveness? She becomes the symbol of any unspeakable loss that we feel.”

IF YOU GO 

What: Spring Ensemble Theatre’s “Frozen”

When: April 2 through April 19, 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: Springs Ensemble Theatre, 2409 W. Colorado Ave.

Price: $10-$25, (719) 291-4812, springsensembletheatre.org