The Other Side of 25 is a one-woman dark comedy about coming to terms with fitting into the adult world.

Becca Hurd stars as Amory, a 25-year-old drifting in life who reluctantly carries out the promise to be the surrogate for her sister’s baby.

“It’s an arbitrary age where people expect you to have your life together and know what you’re doing,” Hurd says. “I very much feel that, and the character Amory is someone who doesn’t have her life together, doesn’t know what she wants or what she’s doing.”

Outside of the surrogacy, the rest of the story draws on Becca’s own life experiences about dealing with the prospect of being an adult.

“There’s this scene where Amory goes to a yoga class and has a panic attack about her life,” Hurd says. “That happened to me in real life. I had a panic attack in class, then sat down to write and word vomited out this scene, so it’s hard for me to dissociate where I am in my own life. That just bled into the piece, so it’s about growing up, as much as it’s about this character becoming a mother.”

The Chicago native moved to Australia last year to get her MFA in Writing for Performance from NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts) in Sydney.

After applying on a whim, she was surprised to have gotten accepted and didn’t think she’d be able to follow through, until a fateful event changed her mind.

While working in a cupcake shop, she noticed an Australian accent on a customer, surprised to learn he was from Sydney.

“I was like ‘no way, I just found I got into NIDA,’” Hurd says. “He cut me off saying ‘you got into NIDA, holy shit you got into NIDA? That’s incredible, I had friends 30 years ago that couldn’t get into that school, you’re gonna go right?’ He looked at me and said there’s a reason I came in here tonight and it’s to tell you have to do this, I have friends in Sydney I’ll help you out. So whoever Darren is that I met on that December night last year, is a big reason I’m here.”

The Other Side of 25 runs from 21-24 February at Loft at A Club Adelaide.

Tickets are available on the Fringe website.

By Chris Dastoor

Photo supplied.