When a pair of reports outlining the grim impacts of climate change came out last fall, Rozina Kanchwala felt frustrated and a bit hopeless. She also happened to be getting frustrated by dating. To deal with both, she wrote a semi-autobiographical play.

“When I saw these reports [come out], they were one after the other, I was like ‘Surely, the world is going to know about this and we’re going to do something about this now,” she says. “But it seems like it hardly made it on anyone’s radar outside of the environmental community.”

The play, which premiered at this year’s Capital Fringe Festival, is aptly named Love in the Time of Climate Change, and was a way for Kanchwala to air her frustrations. “That frustration ranges from the little things like dating to the big things, like impending climate doom,” she says. Kanchwala wrote and co-directed the play, along with Samssa Ali and Kirsten Rumsey.

Kanchwala, who’s in her 30s and has worked in the solar energy field for the past six years, says that one of her goals in writing the play was to spark a conversation around some of the anxiety that people feel because of climate change. Some people call this feeling solastalgia and the play uses that term as well.

“I think it’s really easy to get depressed about climate change, it’s very easy to get down and to feel hopeless about it,” Kanchwala says. “The play gives shape and definition to the anxiety that people are feeling but may not be able to articulate … People who have been working on [the issue of climate change] for a long time, when you really learn about climate science and you’re really in it, it can be very depressing and overwhelming. It really is a huge problem.”

The play chronicles the experiences of a Kamila, a young woman suffering from “climate depression” and dating in a city where people are a “little bit flighty and flaky.” (No, the play isn’t explicitly about the D.C. dating scene, but it did take some inspiration from it.) The audience follows Kamila as she goes on a series of dates, some found through dating apps, others through meeting people IRL. Some of the situations presented in the play come from Kanchwala’s own dating experiences.

There are lots of wacky dates, but the play’s 50-minute runtime is also interspersed with a healthy dose of information on climate change, its mental and emotional toll, and suggestions for how the audience can take action on the issue.

There’s a scene about how meat consumption impacts the planet (which ultimately motivates one of Kamila’s dates to opt for an Impossible burger instead of a meat burger), a fictional climate legislation bill modeled on the real-world Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, and information on how the audience can get involved with organizations working to find solutions to climate change. During her closing remarks at one of the showings, Kanchwala shouted out a representative from the Citizens’ Climate Lobby who happened to be in the audience.

The combination of themes seems to be resonating. One person who donated to the play’s GoFundMe page wrote in the comments, “Can’t wait to see this play! Climate despair is real, yo. Glad somebody is thinking creatively about this.” And Kanchwala says climate activists and others working in environmental advocacy have told her that the play was very relatable and captured a lot of how they’ve been feeling.

Psychologists and mental health professionals have been paying more attention to how climate change affects our mental health, too. The American Psychological Association even put out a guide a couple of years ago with tips for how individuals, communities, and mental health professionals can manage climate change-induced stress, anxiety, depression, and general distress.

This isn’t even the first time a play on climate change, love, and dating has made an appearance at Fringe: Last year’s festival featured a musical about falling in love in the age of climate change. But while love and the woes of dating in the age of Tinder (and other apps) are key parts of the story, the play is about more than that.

For Kanchwala, the goal is, yes, to entertain but it’s also about “leaving people informed that there are solutions, there are organizations working towards positive change.”

Love in the Time of Climate Change will be playing at 5:45 p.m. on July 19, 8:15 p.m. on July 25, and 9:00 p.m. July 27 at Peacock – Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church. Tickets are $20.