Therapy

Therapy is a show situated at the intersection of creativity and depression. In a world of faux self-care and the trope of the tortured artist, Ashton Turner’s new cabaret, featuring her original music, is an intimate, wry and bittersweet exploration of mental health, growing up, and trying to figure it out.

For a long time, Ashton Turner had described her own creative process as ‘therapeutic’, as had many artists she knew. She wondered, stepping into the psychologist’s office for the very first time last year, how accurate that description really was.

Therapy is a journey through the subconscious of a young creative struggling with her mental health. Helped along by the three ‘Head Voices’, as well as a score of original music, Ashton crosses the distance between the “I’m Fine” stage and the ‘I will be fine’ stage. Along the way, she finds herself faced with more than a few big questions: What does the future hold? Can creativity really be a form of therapy? If being depressed doesn’t inspire a great work of art in you, were you ever really an artist to begin with?

“I want the audience to see themselves somewhere on the stage,” Ashton says. “Whether in the satirical take on the modern notion of ‘self-care’ or in that youthful, desperate grasp for clarity on the edge of adulthood. I want them to know that they are never alone in how they feel, and that help is always available, even if it comes from an unexpected place.”