Writer/Director's note for Alma Baya

This is an unusual writer’s note for me, because it is also a dedication. My brother, David Einhorn, died in the middle of rehearsals for this play, after a battle with cancer. He co-founded the theater company with me, and from the time I was very young, he instilled a love of absurdism along with a love of science fiction. Here is what absurdism teaches us, or at least what it taught me. We have been placed in an impossible world and asked to somehow find meaning. We are beset by the prospect of death, by our own failings, by circumstance, by plague, by our own cruelty to each other. I have said this is my most nihilistic play, and perhaps it is. But there is hope, buried underneath. There is humor, even at the darkest moments. Every character is one I love, even the most unlovable. Every character is one I want to succeed, even though I know, since I wrote the words myself, sometimes success is impossible. Some find meaning simply in the struggle for life. Some turn to spirituality to find meaning. For myself, I use David’s greatest gifts to find meaning: love, laughter, and art. So perhaps every play is a hopeful one, because its very existence is a sign of hope.