Amphibian Stage will present Adam Cayton-Holland’s new-one-man show, Happy Place, loosely adapted for the stage from his critically acclaimed 2018 memoir, Tragedy Plus Time.

Cayton-Holland was plugging away in the world of stand-up, steadily climbing the comedy ladder, when the unthinkable happened: his little sister Lydia killed herself. His best friend, his earliest collaborator, the funniest person he knew, gone, in an instant. Life, as he knew it, was forever changed. Suddenly, everything felt like a lie.

Cayton-Holland’s "Happy Place" was leveled. He quit stand-up. Nothing felt funny anymore. Just getting out of bed was hard. Through time, plenty of therapy, and constant soul-searching, eventually he was able to put one foot in front of the other, to find joy in comedy again. It was, after all, a "Happy Place" that both he and Lydia had cherished.

Never shying away from the tough subject matter of mental illness, depression and suicide, Happy Place is a darkly funny exploration of going through the unimaginable and learning to find your sense of humor again. Funny, sad, touching and real, Happy Place never condescends to the audience through and-then-comedy-saved-my-life tropes. Instead, it is a refreshing and honest look at the way life throws bad at you with the good, and the desperate struggle of trying to not drown under the weight of it all.