SCOTTS VALLEY >> No matter how small or large families are, there are a few inevitable milestones in parenting: the birth of each child, dropping them off on their first day of school, attending every promotion and graduation ceremony and the first day when parents have the house to themselves after their last child goes to college.

The latter milestone can be very melancholy for a lot of parents, but it does not have to be. Clay Hausmann, longtime marketing professional and Santa Cruz resident, experienced this last year when his youngest child went away to college, but he sees what has been dubbed “empty nest syndrome” as an inevitable reality of parenting, one he demonstrates in his new one-man show “Empty Nest and All the Rest.” The comedic take on parenting will be performed at The Landing in Scotts Valley June 28 and July 19.

What’s more, the show will serve as a fundraiser for the burgeoning venue, founded by Ray and Cindy Gorski, the latter of whom was also Hausmann’s kids’ drama teacher at Pacific Collegiate School.

“She and her husband were studying the Scotts Valley Community Theater, and I was helping them with it a few years ago but then got really busy with work and had to step away from it,” he said. “I thought, what if I came up with a creative challenge for myself, and I’ve got this idea for a show and I do it as a fundraiser for the theater and raise awareness and raise some money for them?”

Hausmann, who graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Arts in communications, has worked in the world of marketing and communications for more than 30 years at a variety of agencies. The job that brought him to Santa Cruz was with Plantronics, where he ran corporate marketing for the electronics company for six years. Throughout it all, he still had a creative side.

“Whenever I’ve given corporate presentations, I’ve always tried to build an element of comedy into it,” he said.

Hausmann also took two years off from marketing to try his hand at screenwriting, where he authored four screenplays and was a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 2011.

His latest creative endeavor, “Empty Nest and All the Rest,” came from his own two kids who, at the ages of 19 and 22, have moved out of the house, leaving Hausmann and his wife as empty nesters.

In fact, he had been kicking the idea around even before then.

“The title came first,” he said.

“Empty Nest and All the Rest” is a chronological show about the frenzied stages of parenting and how perspectives change through each of those stages.

“It’s always supposed to culminate in what is supposed to be a very sad or challenging or traumatic moment of when you become an empty nester and your kids leave, but I haven’t felt that to be the case,” said Hausmann. “It just looks at the way you see the world differently through all of these different stages of your life and how being a parent affects that.”

While there are sentimental moments, Hausmann said the scenes are largely comedic. He was largely inspired by comedians like Mike Birbiglia and Alex Edelman, whose one-man shows have been presented as specials on Netflix and Max.

“There’s a narrative or theme that runs through the whole show, and it’s not just a comedian with a mic going joke, punchline, joke, punchline,” he said. “It has a narrative arc and a story to it.”

The show is a fundraiser for The Landing, which opened in 2022 as the Scotts Valley Cultural & Performing Arts Center and provides a venue for theatrical productions, dance shows, meetings and even has served as the hub for the annual Alfred Hitchcock Festival.

“The theater is a great thing for Scotts Valley and for Santa Cruz County more broadly,” said Hausmann. “Anything that I can do to help bring attention to what the team there is doing and the potential of that theater, I just think we need more venues like that in the area with interesting acts and artists coming through. That’s a huge driver for me to want to do it at that theater.”

The Landing will serve as the site for the world premiere for “Empty Nest,” and Hausmann said he will consider if he wants to bring it to other venues as well.

One thing Hausmann believes audiences will like about “Empty Nest” is how relatable it is to just about everyone.

“Even if you didn’t have the exact same experience that we did, you can go, ‘Oh, that’s just like such and such in our family,’” he said.

For parents, Hausmann hopes they will become aware of and appreciate the little moments in their lives that might otherwise fly by and understand they should not have to feel sad about being an empty nester.

“It’s just an occasion that’s just a transition into the next phase of their lives, like a lot of other transitions you’ve made,” he said. “I think there’s just as much to be celebrated — even more to be celebrated — than to be mournful.”

“Empty Nest and All the Rest” will be performed at 7 p.m. June 28 and 8 p.m. July 19 at The Landing, 251 Kings Village Road, Suite B, Scotts Valley. Tickets are $40 for the June 28 show and $30 for the July 19 show ($35 at the door) and can be purchased at Our.show/hausmann.