HOLD THAT THOUGHT WHILE I SCREAM Will Come to Hollywood Fringe Festival

Barrett DeYoung will make his Hollywood Fringe Festival debut with a workshop production of his new dark comedy-drama, Hold That Thought While I Scream.

Set in a therapist's office in the 1940s, the play follows a female therapist as she quietly unravels while guiding three increasingly fractured clients through their own crises. Each session brings new confessions, delusions, and carefully constructed narratives, and as the hours pass, her grip on herself begins to slip.

Lady Havilland (Nicole Ohara), a fiercely ambitious therapist from humble beginnings, has fought relentlessly against the limitations of her time to build a life and practice of her own. But as the play unfolds, set roughly a year into her success, she finds herself struggling to hold together everything she's created. Across three sessions with patients (all played by Benjamin J. Young), Lady is forced to confront not only their instability, but her own.

As ambition collides with reality, boundaries blur. Breakthroughs and breakdowns arrive in equal measure. What emerges is an absurd, funny, and deeply human portrait of people grasping for control, connection, and meaning in a world that offers no easy answers.

While rooted in the 1940s, Hold That Thought While I Scream uses the era as a quiet pressure rather than a focal point. Against an unspoken backdrop of war, censorship, and rapid technological change, the play draws subtle parallels to the present day. But at its heart, it remains something simpler and more intimate: a story about loneliness, the need to belong, and the fragile hope of being enough.

Need more Los Angeles Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...