“End of Times Therapy” World Premiere at The Santa Monica Playhouse – Program Notes

I am immensely grateful to be at the stage of writing the program notes for the world premiere of “End of Times Therapy” at the Santa Monica Playhouse. However, I can’t begin to discuss this play without first addressing the devastation of the LA fires that ravaged LA only few weeks ago. The heartbreak and destruction of the fires that began on January 7th can not be overstated. And I suspect the magnitude of this destitution will not be fully understood for years to come. If you would like to support fire relief efforts, donations to organizations like the Red Cross are always good, but direct contributions never hurt. I made a spreadsheet of organizations for fire relief and here is a list of GoFundme pages for Black or Latino families in Altadena. It’s never too late to donate as the road to recovery will stretch into years to come.

As many have pointed out to me, if ever there was a time or place to match the title of this play, it would, unfortunately, be the city of Los Angeles in January of 2025. To be honest, if I could change the name, I would. It was not meant as mocking or cynical as it sounds but was a satirical reference to the polarized doom scrolling culture we live in and the idea of theater as therapy. Now it is one of many ironies in the timing of this production. Mind you, the play itself is not sad. But LA, a place that is so many things, currently faces immense loss.

Almost everyone in LA knows multiple people who lost their homes, and so much more; their community, neighborhoods, schools, parks, coffee shops, not to mention their equity and whatever financial security they had in this tough economy. The economic toll outside of personal loss is immeasurable. We are and will be impacted by this for who knows how long. There is also the loss of the illusion of safety. If Altadena could burn the way it did, we are all vulnerable. I hold a special selfish grief for the Palisades mountains, whose beautiful trails got me through the pandemic. I have hiked those trails countless times, at night, in the rain, during dozens of sunsets over the ocean. It never got old. I have seen a million lizards and rabbits, and more snakes with and without rattles than I ever cared to. I have communed with the stillness of the trees. This land is sacred to the indigenous Chumash, who continue to take care of it, and I get it. I cried every day for a week. So much that I made a video.

Producing a play in the direct aftermath of the biggest disaster in LA history added more challenges, to say the least. For one thing, it feels rude and out of tune to promote theater while people are suffering one of the worst events in their lives Not to mention, for a time, I thought the show would never happen. Rehearsals were set to begin on January 6th but on January 7th we cancelled due to the winds and the quickly moving fire in the Palisades. I had actually considered going on a hike in the Palisades earlier that day, but decided against it because of the winds. Then I watched from the beach as a giant cloud of smoke headed into the ocean, which soon became a mountain of flames seen from anywhere. I obsessed with friends on the phone about evacuating. At 11:00 pm I drove to a friend’s house in Culver City because I knew if I didn’t I would be up all night refreshing Watch Duty to see if the Santa Monica mandatory evacuation line moved. But it didn’t but stopped on the border of the Santa Monica Playhouse. Endless love for first responders. They are, as far as I’m concerned, real life heroes who deserve all the accolades given to movie stars and war veterans.

In yet, another ironic twist, the weeks after the fires felt very early Covid, when I first began the writing. Everything shut down, masks came out, but this time people stayed inside because the air was so toxic. I began this play during Covid lockdown, when everything was shut down and I was on a break from freelance work wit literally nothing else to do. It was either reorganize my closet, go on another solo hike (in the Palisades mountains) or follow a weirdo dream. I was lonely, depressed and filled with anger toward the “leadership” of this country, which is (here we go with irony) the same “leadership” currently in office.

So I sat in my apartment and made myself write. I had always wanted to write a play that took place in the post-apocalyptic dystopia, but got as far as two women who plan to plunder a liquor store. Then I read “Parable of the Sower,” by Octavia Butler who, in hello irony again, was born in Pasadena and buried Altadena. She prophesied much of our current state of affairs with MAGA, climate change, and women’s reproductive rights as if she looked into a crystal ball. I also read Kate Manne’s book, “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women” which drove home for me the expectation that women must perform domestic labor for free. Both of these books informed my thoughts and spirit of the play and I would like to thank the authors.

I sent the first draft to Abigail Marlowe who performed in my first produced play, “Changes In The Mating Strategies of White People,” in 2014, and who quickly helped me pull together a Zoom reading. Though the draft was rough, the reading was great. I forgot about it until she emailed me months later and suggested we organize another reading, and from there we kept going. After four years of a dozen readings we felt ready to find some means of production. I was discouraged by the cost of independent theater in LA in the 2020s which had gone up 1000% since 2014. And then I applied to the Binge Fringe Festival of Free and connected with Evelyn and Chris Rudie who offered their space and asked if we could call it the “World Premiere” and to which I said, “Heck yeah!” Immense thanks to Evelyn and Chris and the team at the Santa Monica Playhouse.

I was not always motivated and if it were not for Abigail’s continued conviction and drive, this production would not have happened. Neither would it have happened were it not for Robert Yasumura who pulled it together in a way I never could. Robert saw all the ways it trailed off or came to a grinding halt or just did not make sense. He brought his incredible talent and knowledge of theater to all the details of acting and production, from lighting to the props to the color of the hoodie Trip wears. I could not ask for a more talented director, so thank you Robert! The cast and design team could also not be more talented and professional. I worked with Peter Carlstedt on the SFX of “Changes In the Mating Strategies of White People” and am so grateful that he brought his genius to this production where the SFX are almost another character. Mio Okada’s glorious set design is pretty much worth the drive and cost of admission in itself. And the amazing cast of Abigail, Sarah Cortez, Anne Gregory, Jeremy Guskin, Leonard Wu, and Anthony Riggins Jr., could not be more perfectly brilliant and also representative of LA, which has nothing to do with DEI, but yes for diversity. And thank you to my sister Laura Gamboa who created this incredible playlist of songs, many used in this production. If you need a Soundtrack to get you through day, listen to the “End of Times Therapy” playlist on Spotify.

This is all to say that I in no way sat down one night and churned out the play you see performed. My college Shakespeare teacher once told me that William wrote his plays in one sitting…and, well, I continue to not believe that. So thank you Shakespeare for the inspo, but let’s stop hero worshipping dead white men.

Not sure that the show “must” go on, but this show did, and I am so proud of everyone for putting everything they have into this play. I am beyond grateful for all the support this play has received. Thank you so much to everyone who donated to the fundraiser, who came or performed at the many readings, to my friend Jennifer Jameson for discussing all the characters and casting after each reading, Cicely Bingener for being an audience again and again, Ben Weber for directing several amazing readings, and my family and friends who have always supported my work. And thanks to my mother, Rafaela Castro, who will have been gone ten years on February 12th of this year. It was she who signed me up for theater programs when I was in fourth grade and indulged me in a way that a child needs to grow into someone who chooses to be an artist. What was she thinking? I don’t have kids but I would support dental school over theater anyday.

I read recently that theater is the most low stakes occupation. The worst that can happen is that you waste an audience’s time, incur criticism and the humiliation of failure (though, there really is no such thing as failure). Those are some pretty low stakes compared to first responders, heart surgeons, or air traffic controllers. And I’d be lying if I said that’s not part of the appeal. But the upside of creating theater, the shared passion, community, and ability to share your god given talents to entertain, inspire, process, exorcise, is immeasurable. As someone who consumes a ridiculous amount of media and art I am constantly in a state of gratitude to writers, actors, directors and producers for reflecting something back to me. For helping me make sense of the insanity of living here in this country in 2025 So I hope that as well as being a wonderful experience for me, probably one of the best of my life, seeing this show created by incredibly talented people does something beneficial to the largely traumatized audience of my LA community, and anyone else who traveled to come see it, or who will watch live streamed on March 8th. No amount of billions of dollars or AI can do what we did. It is work I love, it is non-essential, but with the potential to be so much more…I hope. Thank you for being here and part of something so much bigger than the sum of it’s parts, of any parts, really.

Thank you also to all the angels for your financial support!

Without your support we were able to pay a stipend to everyone involved, hire publicist, a photographer, and make costumes.

Aaron Baumhackl, Amy M Spelta, Andrew Walsh, Arianne MacBean, Catherine Bell, Christin Embenson, Cicely Bingener, Darlene Gamboa, deerhound2005, Elizabeth Dibble, Eric Grimm, Erika Kerekes, Gillian Singletary, Jameson Duggan, Jana Godshall, Jane Alcala, Jared Watson, Jennifer Cohen, Jennifer Glynn, Jennifer Jameson, Jewel Dellagel, John Filizzola, Karl Klein, Katherine Jones, Keren Muller, Laura Gamboa, Laura Wambsgans, Leonard Kovner, Lilly Schott, Linda Castro, Lori Seamon, Lotus Golden, Maria Bamford, Maureen Marlowe, Mike Day, Muriel Minot, Nina Belcher, Rachel Marlowe, Rebecca Long, Rich Grosso, Samantha Raddock, Sarah Fey, Sherrill Smith, Solomon Russell, Steve Young, Walter Marlowe