BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE to Open Outside In Theatre's Scripted Season
Abel Torres performs live onstage while Nancy Moncayo joins via video from Ecuador in the family's latest collaboration.
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Outside In Theatre will open its primary scripted season September 20 with the world premiere of Before It's Too Late, a deeply personal and comedic new work written and performed by award-winning Ecuadorian-American storyteller Christopher Moncayo-Torres and directed by Bernardo Cubría. Previews begin September 15, with opening night set for Sunday, September 20 at 3 p.m. Performances continue through October 6 at Outside In Theatre in Los Angeles.
Joining Moncayo-Torres are his Ecuadorian parents: his 82-year-old father, Abel Torres, appearing live onstage, and his 78-year-old mother, Nancy Moncayo, joining from her home in Ecuador via video.
Blending live storytelling, family history, improvisation and cooking, Before It's Too Late follows Moncayo-Torres as he attempts something at once simple and extraordinarily difficult: to better understand and be understood by his parents.
The barriers are both literal and emotional. Christopher was raised in Queens, New York, by Ecuadorian parents, but his relationship to Spanish has complicated the way he communicates with them. His father will be beside him onstage; his mother is now thousands of miles away in Salinas, Ecuador. As Christopher spends time with each of them, the family attempts to reach across differences in language, geography and history in search of something they all understand: care.
The work brings Outside In Theatre's season-long exploration of connection and community into deeply personal territory.
'At a moment when how we connect within our communities is under scrutiny and duress, the work we are featuring this year asks how we communicate and care for one another,' said Jessica Hanna, Producing Artistic Director of Outside In Theatre. 'In Before It's Too Late, Christopher has had to figure out how to communicate, literally, with his parents to reach across a language divide to find the care he desires and needs. We watch that process unfold in real time and see how the desire to care for one another can overcome obstacles and create connection.'
For Outside In, supporting Before It's Too Late is also critical to the theatre's commitment to developing new work.
' Giving space and support to Christopher, his parents and the amazing team that has come together to create this piece under the direction of Bernardo Cubria is exactly the kind of development of world premiere material that Outside In was created for.', said Hanna
Christopher's attempts to bring his family into his storytelling began somewhat accidentally. In 2017, he performed a traditional solo show in New York about his relationship with Abel. Sitting in the front row, his father became an unexpected part of the performance simply by being himself, falling asleep and snoring, answering his phone and interrupting Christopher mid-story to ask where he could find the bathroom.
By 2024, father and son had turned that unpredictable dynamic into a show of its own. Christopher and Abel premiered No Sabo (formerly Habla y te Salvas: True Stories of a No Sabo Kid from Queens & his Guayaco Dad) at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Built around their once-estranged relationship and the language barrier between them, the show combined live storytelling, improvisation and audience translation as Christopher and his then-first-time-performer father learned how to share a stage and communicate with each other in real time.
The production was nominated for Top of Fringe and the Adelaide Fringe Exchange Award and received the Best Two Person Show Award, Eastwood Independent Theatre Award and Denver Fringe Festival Exchange Award.
Now Christopher is bringing his mother into the story. For the past two years, he has been developing a theatrical relationship with Nancy through video-call interviews, imperfect Spanish-English translation, travel to her new home in Ecuador and messy cooking lessons together.
Nancy immigrated to New York City from Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 1968 at age 19. A hardworking single mother, she cared for her children in part through the Ecuadorian food she prepared for them. After 57 years in the United States, she returned to Ecuador in 2025 and now lives in the coastal city of Salinas.
In Before It's Too Late, food becomes another language between mother and son. With Nancy guiding him from Ecuador, Christopher attempts to prepare one of her recipes for a live audience while navigating instructions in a language he struggles to speak.
The cooking lesson opens into a larger question: Can Christopher learn how to receive his mother's care while simultaneously learning how to care for her?
'I'm a little nervous to talk about our story,' Nancy said of making her performance debut, translated from Spanish. 'But I want to help you with this.'
Abel, meanwhile, returns to Los Angeles after making his acting debut at age 80 alongside Christopher in No Sabo. 'I hope the show is a success,' Abel said, translated from Spanish. 'And I want to say that I am very proud of you. You're making progress. Keep going!'
Together for the first time in Christopher's theatrical world, the three family members confront the comedy, frustration and tenderness of trying to understand the people closest to us and the urgency of doing so before it's too late.
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER MONCAYO-TORRES
Christopher Moncayo-Torres is an award-winning Ecuadorian-American writer, performer and live storyteller born and raised in Queens, New York, and now based in Los Angeles. He is a storytelling instructor and host for The Moth and has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour. He has led storytelling workshops across the country with communities ranging from high school and college students to veterans and currently incarcerated people.
Christopher is the co-founder and Managing Director of Fail Better Arts, a BIPOC-centered community of multidisciplinary art-makers who experiment together with unfinished works through accessible workshops. He also serves on the Hollywood Fringe Festival Access Advisory Board and Scholarship Deliberation Committee and hosts the monthly storytelling-workshop show Fail Better Story Time www.failbetterarts.com.
ABOUT BERNARDO CUBRÍA
Bernardo Cubría is a Mexican writer and director. Recent directing credits include Am I Roxie? at Geffen Playhouse, Carla Ching's Revenge Porn and Malcolm Barrett's Brain Problems with Ammunition Theatre Company, and his own play The H/L/L/L/L Vote at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum.
His play Crabs in a Bucket received the 2024 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing. The Play You Want premiered at L.A.'s Road Theatre in 2022, earning Cubría a Stage Raw Award and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nomination for playwriting. He was also a 2023 Sundance Screenwriters Lab Fellow for Kill Yr Idols, which he co-wrote, and was a writer on Seasons 3 and 4 of Apple TV+'s Acapulco.
ABOUT OUTSIDE IN THEATRE
Outside In Theatre is a new non-profit theatre in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. An evolving force in equitable and transformative storytelling. Through multi-platform theatrical experiences, we create art that speaks to our intersectional communities. We have a focus on new work, both Scripted and Unscripted, developing new plays as well as creating improvised stories that will lift up the voices of the Global Majority, Queer, Disabled and other traditionally marginalized groups and their allies. We live at the intersection of Live & Digital performance, with infrastructure for cameras and streaming that will create greater access to the work of local artists. We believe in making Brave Spaces for All, building the world we want to see by producing daring, dynamic, and authentic untold stories by unheard voices. Outside In Theatre is building the world we want to see by creating, producing and supporting daring, dynamic, and authentic untold stories by unheard voices. www.outsideintheatre.org
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