Charity’s plans to move to California with her girlfriend, Dani, are put on hold when her mother breaks her hip trying to manage her brother through yet another mental health crisis. Determined to finally get her brother the support he needs, Charity moves back to her family home only to find her best efforts thwarted by a surreal mental health system; her mother’s insistence that everything is okay; and an obnoxious, aptly named, and increasingly impossible to manage Sleep Demon.
The absurdist, humorist romp The Care and Keeping of Schizophrenia (and Other Demons) asks: can Charity take control of the pressures bearing down on her or will a desperate attempt to get her family “well” tear her life apart?
NEW PLAY READING FESTIVAL 2024
People power plays. Plays power progress.
Join us for staged readings of exciting new works that are in keeping with our mission to bring you risky, adventurous plays that you won’t find anywhere else in Southern California, as well as surrounding events that celebrate the artists making the work.
July 20 @ 12 PM – The Care and Keeping of Schizophrenia (and Other Demons) by Gloria Oladipo
July 20 @ 4 PM – Octopus’s Garden by Weston Gaylord
July 21 @ 12 PM – You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! by Keiko Green
July 21 @ 4 PM – Horsegirl & Cowdaddy by DJ Hills
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Gloria Oladipo is a playwright based in New York, proudly hailing from Chicago, IL. She writes Black comedies about Black women, exploring themes of caregiving, mental health, and trauma through a mix of realism and absurdism. Gloria is a 2023-2025 Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group Fellow. She is also 2022-2023 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow and 2023 Seven Devils New Play Conference resident, where her play The Care and Keeping of Schizophrenia (and Other Demons) is in development. She is a 2023 Gingold Group Speaker’s Corner fellow, with her play I Wanna Kill, Annie G. Gloria is 2023 artist-in-residence with New York Stage and Film in Poughkeepsie, New York. Gloria is also a two-Velvetpark Writers Residency finalist and a Eugene O’Neil Playwriting Conference Semi-Finalist. Gloria is also an award-winning cultural critic and journalist. She is the 2023 recipient of the American Theatre Critics Association’s Edward Medina Prize for Excellence in Cultural Criticism. She is a 2022 National Critics Institute fellow at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, an opportunity she was selected for via the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Institute for Theatre Journalism and Advocacy. Gloria’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, the Guardian, Bitch Media, and other publications.
