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Presented by Maggie Chieffo and Allison Dayne
9/25/2026 - 9/26/2026
 Funny but true story of a woman who becomes a non-sexual escort ion order to pay off massive medical bills.
A raw, fiercely comedic 60-minute solo show, every word true. When an uninsured 29-year-old actress collapses and is given eight months to live,the hospital demands $800,000 in cash upfront at a predatory 785 interest rate, her parents have already liquidated their retirement for her father's cancer, and her trust-fund boyfriend declines: "I don't think it's healthy for me to help you fix your financial needs. I'm a feminist." She refuses to take on the debt, even if it means dying: "The moment you have debt, you've invited someone to own you. And I'm not interested in being owned at all." Then a clinic nurse gives her the only useful advice of her diagnosis: "You're a white girl with a fat ass in Atlanta. You know what to do." So, she builds a profile on Seeking Arrangements, becomes a girl named Justine, and transforms into a high-paid, untouchable sugar baby with one strict rule: no sex, ever. Deploying her acting training, Meisner, Stanislavski, scene objectives, on custom-scripted dates, she becomes a doting plus-one at a daughter’s wedding, a fake fiancée in a hospice room, a dance partner for an 80-year-old widower in his dead wife’s dress. She pays for surgery after surgery in cash, the rule intact, until a $50,000 emergency forces her to consider breaking it. When people ask if she’s okay, she has a standard answer: “I’ll die from it, just not today.” It’s a story about medical debt, survival work, and the male loneliness epidemic, and it ends with her looking the room dead in the eye: “It’s not what you had to do to survive. It’s the fact that you DID survive.” Allison Dayne is an Idaho-born, Los Angeles-based actor, writer, and comedian, and a member of Actors’ Equity. She holds her MFA in Performing Arts and Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design, was the youngest person accepted into The Second City’s Comedy Studies Program in Chicago, and trains at The Groundlings and UCB. Her stage work includes originating the role of Sam in Keiko Green’s Hometown Boy at Lincoln Center and Titus Andronicus with New Jersey Shakespeare her one-woman show Scorch won Best of Fringe in Utah, and Unrequited: A Chekhovian Collision took Critics’ Choice and Best Playwright at the Atlanta Fringe. On screen, she wrote and stars in A King’s Curtain, an Oscar-qualified short opposite Stephen McKinley Henderson, Austin Pendleton, and Veanne Cox (“touches a universal nerve,” Splash Magazines), and wrote, co-directed, and starred in the feature Madly, now streaming. She has delivered a TEDx Talk on her original theory of comedy, built 1.2million likes on TikTok, and recently performed at the sold-out Baby Bumps at The Crow.
Director Cameron Lopez is a queer, Latino, Los Angeles-based director, instructor, and actor specializing in classical and contemporary American theatrical works. Some selected regional credits include: The Glass Menagerie (The SOS Theater Company), Godspell (Opera In The Ozarks), Oklahoma! (Next Generation Performing Arts) and co-directing The Call at the William Inge Theater Festival among others. Cameron also has served as an artistic consultant and a faculty member of the Next Generation Performing Arts Program for 4 years teaching both acting and directing workshops and master classes.
Maggie Chieffo is a producer and media executive. She spent fifteen years with Michael Mann’s Forward Pass, rising to senior executive and most recently Co-Producer on Ferrari. As General Manager of Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls at Legendary Entertainment, she led the company and its content slate, which was recognized with Common Sense media’s Digital Media Leadership Award and the Anne Frank Center’s SAFA Youth Empowerment Award. She co-founded Smart Girls Party, an independent entertainment company creating original personal-narrative work across podcasts, digital, live, and film, grounded in the belief that hearing the whole story can change how people understand themselves and one another. Her work in health and impact media includes a documentary short on maternal mental health, currently in post-production, global digital strategy for the WHO Foundation’s GO GIVE ONE COVID vaccine-equity campaign, and a story platform she directed and produced for Blood Cancer United. She currently serves as Vice President of the board of the Disability Community Resource Center, a Center for Independent Living designed and operated by people with disabilities based in Los Angeles.
So, what would YOU do to survive?
Venue The Crow
2525 Michigan Avenue
Unit F4
Santa Monica CA 90404
Details Regions: LA - Hollywood / Westside
Categories: Theater > Theatrical Comedy
Event Phone: 626-674-0504
Performance Dates 9/25/2026 - 9/26/2026Friday, 09/25/2026 Saturday, 09/26/2026
Performance Times 8 p.m.
Ticket Information $20 Get Tickets
Websites & Social Media Event Information
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