How do you prove something belongs to you when the people closest to you aren’t sure they believe you? That question sits at the heart of Proof, David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play, starring Kate Mansi in Arizona Theatre Company’s season-opening production.
Onstage at Tempe Center for the Arts through November 8, the drama follows Catherine, a young woman grieving the death of her father, a brilliant mathematician. When his former student discovers an extraordinary mathematical proof among his papers, questions arise about who actually wrote it. For Catherine, the dispute becomes deeply personal, forcing her to confront doubts about her own abilities and the complicated legacy her father left behind.
While mathematics sets the story in motion, its emotional center is familiar: family relationships, the desire to be believed, and the challenge of understanding yourself beyond someone else’s expectations.
For Mansi, playing Catherine marks her Arizona Theatre Company debut and a return to a character she first encountered at 19. She used one of Catherine’s monologues to audition for a conservatory, establishing a connection to the play early in her artistic journey.
That connection also became part of her family life. According to Arizona Theatre Company, conversations about Proof with her grandmother, Honey, gave them a shared language for discussing mental difference. The play offered a starting point for conversations whose meaning extended beyond the stage. This production is also dedicated to Mansi’s father.
Since that early audition, Mansi has built a career on screen and behind the camera, with roles in Amazon Freevee’s Casa Grande and How I Met Your Mother. The Pepperdine University graduate earned a Daytime Emmy for her work on Days of Our Lives and has appeared in General Hospital, where she has also directed. Her directing work includes the festival-run project Oh Sh*t! With Proof, she brings that breadth of experience back to a character she first explored at 19.
Catherine gives her a character caught between grief and possibility. As she considers what she may have inherited from her father, she must also decide whom to trust and whether to allow others into her life. The mystery surrounding the proof places those relationships under pressure, making belief as consequential as any mathematical answer.
For Tempe audiences, the production offers an opportunity to see Mansi in a live performance rooted in questions of identity, connection, and belonging. For the actress, it brings an early artistic touchstone into a new chapter of her career, returning her to a character whose story has remained meaningful through the years.
Arizona Theatre Company presents Proof October 24 through November 8 at Tempe Center for the Arts, 700 W. Rio Salado Parkway. Visit atc.org for performance information.