Playwright Frank Cossa has drawn on his experiences in academia to create a new play at the American Theatre of Actors, About That Letter. It shows with vivid emphasis how much weight is put on one moment in a professor’s career – their review for tenure. It takes that concept to expound about the ways we can impact someone’s life that we never met and how one moment can seemingly change everything. It’s a great setup. But it sometimes feels like it could expand on the people being used to tell the story.

At the end of a long, arduous process, Josh (Dan Wuerdeman) seems finally to have enough support on his university committee to receive tenure. When a letter to the editor in an art history journal written by a grad student points out a major error in his recently published article, however, his chance at tenure disappears. Years later, Josh’s wife, Emma (Isabelle Garbani), meets Pete (Alan Hasnas) at a conference and realizes that Pete, now a tenured professor himself, was the one who wrote the letter that cost Josh his tenure, uprooting their lives and forcing them to essentially start from scratch in a new town. She unexpectedly finds herself face to face with the man she has spent years blaming for ruining her life and getting the chance to lay into him for all the things that happened because that one moment in her husband’s career got derailed.

The show runs about 50 minutes and tells a tight and succinct story in three scenes – Emma and Pete meeting at the conference, a flashback to Emma and Josh as he’s showing her the letter and telling her the committee is reconvening and his tenure isn’t going to happen, and Emma and Pete the next morning in Emma’s hotel room. It paints a good picture in this short format, but it feels like there is room to expand. By showing further scenes of Emma and Josh’s relationship over the years after the letter is published, the script could afford to tell less and show more. It could further expand about the ideas of how a single moment can become a turning point by allowing the audience to fully see and feel the fall out. It also could allow for more varied beats in pacing; it’s a nice and tight 50-ish minutes, but it all drives at a pretty consistent pace.

Garbani is excellent as Emma; she’s sharp, clear, and driven. There’s not a moment it doesn’t feel like she isn’t going to find a way to take complete control of her situation. Hasnas as Pete is interesting to watch, often a bit enigmatic, clearly along for the ride even if he’s just putting the pieces together as Emma leads the way. Wuerdeman, however, often felt a bit awkward or unnatural as Josh. All three are doing a solid job with a script that doesn’t necessarily give a lot of arc for their characters in its short run time.

Director Art Bernal’s staging effectively makes use of the unique set up of the ATA’s Beckmann Theatre. There’s a rare moment it can feel busy with the movement, but wholly feels driven and creates some dynamic images and moments on stage.

There’s really no technical design in the production to speak of. There are a few sparse set pieces, a simple sound cue, and the lighting is very simple and practical. None of this is a bad thing and they fully own the world they create, it just feels remiss to not mention technical elements in a review.

About That Letter touches on some interesting ideas and concepts and has at its core an interesting story. The team does a fine job with it. But it feels like it would benefit from pushing itself to dig a bit deeper.