About the Show
Alzheimer’s at 55 my mom moves into memory care I try to make her feel at home but it’s more like welcome to your worst nightmare I don’t think she understands when I tell her mom it’s going to be okay and can someone please tell me it’s going to be okay and that my brain won’t shrink like her’s now please mom I’m so grateful the brain is so robust but also fragile mom where are you maybe the cure to Alzheimer’s isn’t so far away oh and you know what else is so good for the brain is orgasms does anyone have any XANAX I know I know it’s not good for your brain but I need to sleep.
Directed by Terra Mackintosh and Produced by Jonah Weiland, my one-woman show returns this summer after a sold out run at the 2024 HOLLYWOOD FRINGE. These are my only shows before we head across the pond to the EDINBURGH FRINGE with 21 shows in August.
This is a 60 minute piece of theater. I am the only person on stage and play myself, my mother, and 8 other characters. The genre is tragicomedy, continuously oscillating between heartbreak and hilarity.
The story starts with the day my mom moves into Memory Care. She’s 55 and I’m 25. I try to make her feel "at home”, but it feels impossible in such a sterile, depressing environment. In addition to my mom being at least 20 years younger than the other residents, this new “neighborhood” as the facility calls it is scary… there’s a Halloween decoration in the form of a skeleton with a “BEWARE” sign around its neck that feels pointed; residents are drooling and speaking in gibberish. I can’t believe that this is where my mom belongs now.
The story continues through my navigation of adjusting to her new “home”, doctors appointments (her’s and mine), grappling with the fact that the illness can be genetic and the possibility that I will get it, too, and how to comfort my mom when I, myself, need comfort from losing her in this bewildering way.
There are moments where I share antidotes of the boundless love my mom gave me and how it’s because of this I am able to figure out how to care for her now; moments when I discuss the brain’s features (i.e. that it’s the texture of jello), the alarming neuroscience of Alzheimer’s (how my mom’s brain is shrinking inside her head and I hope mine isn’t too) all whilst avoiding the phone calls from my geneticist with my test results.
Production Team
