Spotlight on Cherish Monique Duke

The Road Theatre Company proudly presents Michael Perlman's At the Table at the Lankershim Arts Center May 17 through July 7. This riveting play deals with six so called liberal friends who realize on a weekend retreat that they are not as enlightened or diverse as they thought. Every week we will spotlight a member of the cast. This week the light shines on Cherish Monique Duke.



Who do you play and what purpose does this character serve?

I play Lauren, the only woman and person of color in a group of four long time college friends. She is the unapologetic mother of the group, the consummate host, the always helpful, always caring, always listening friend. At least in the first Act.

What are your challenges as an actor?

I've done too many shows to count at this point in my life, and this role ranks as one of the most challenging. Lauren is such a complicated character and what made it difficult at first was filling in the pieces that weren't on the page. Figuring out her backstory, and what happened in her past that would answer how and why she feels the need to be so overly caring to her friends. Why can't she see that she is mothering and "mammying" them? Why is she so dead set on this weekend going well and making sure Nicholas and Elliot end up together? Once I answered those questions, it was filling in the year in between the first and second Acts. Why does she come back to the cabin when she knows her ex-boyfriend is bringing his new date? Why does she give this speech about race? What has she discovered about herself in the last year that her friends don't seem to see? Lauren changes so much from the beginning of the play to the end and that's what makes the character so juicy to play. None of those questions are spelled out so you as the actor get the fun and challenging job of figuring it out. That's the beauty of interpretation though, bringing words on a page to life by creating a layered history that drives the objective of the present circumstances and propels your character to their eventual future.

How are you preparing?

I always like to start with my super objective. What does my character want and can't live without. With that I can find my intentions, how do I go about getting what I want. Lauren's friends are her family, she loves them so incredibly much and because of that love she wants to push them to be "better" versions of themselves. She does everything she can to make sure they are taken care of and that their needs are met, that she forgets herself and what she wants out of life. (A true statement for so many women.) I also love spending time with the script. Turning on some great meditation music and marinating on the language by reading and re-reading the lines, turning them over in my mind, and saying them out loud. Aside from the personal at home work, its spending quality time with this amazing cast. understanding each others rhythms, characterization and energy has been the secret sauce to this play and what makes it feel so natural and fun when we are out there together. If that's the secret sauce then the meat is Judy (Moreland, director). Having intricate conversations, asking a million questions, and taking her notes was everything.

What is the theme or message of the play?

There are so many messages and themes in this play, but the biggest one for my character is: Black people aren't given the luxury of being able to truly define their identities. The world sees us and defines us by our skin color. We can't wipe it off, or fake it, or create our own reality because no matter how hard we try our skin color is what people see first. You can wear the nicest suit, have the biggest bank account, and be the smartest man in America, but will still be accosted by the police and labeled (aka Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. ). So when people (liberals and conservatives alike) say, "can't we all just get along" or "I dont see color" or "it only matters who you are inside not whats on the outside" thats a lie. Because what is on the outside IS what matters most for us. We can either embrace and love our difference and acknowledge the beauty of our skin color or we can remain blind to the idea that we even have a say in the matter.

Talk about your fellow castmates and your director.

This play and process wouldn't be what its been without Judy. She is simply an incredible director not just for actors but staging and creatively as well. She allowed us to play so much and that sense of freedom mortified into the naturalistic energy we have on stage. She asks questions without giving answers, she gives notes that are spot on and she lets actors interpret characters for themselves without putting her own conventions on their ideas.. One of my favorite lines of hers was "the most uninteresting choice for an actor to make is to not listen. Its so much more interesting when they listen even if they are acting like they aren't" (Amazing note).

How do I begin to talk about this cast! I mean we are stacked with such incredible talent, professionalism, and just over all amazing vibes. We all connect in such a deep way and we just love pushing each other and having fun. What I love most is that we all love this show and want it to be amazing so we work really hard at having each others backs, connecting, and having a synergy on stage. 

At the Table will play at the Lankershim Arts Center 5108 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA through July 7. There is street parking but arrive early. For tickets call 818 766-8838.

2019 Interview with Director Fritz Brekeller

Hoboken is about to open at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Director Fritz Brekelller took time from a busy schedule to talk with us about the show.

Fritz Brekeller has worked extensively in the soap opera world, winning multiple Daytime Emmy Awards, most recently this past May, as part of the directing team at CBS’s The Young and the Restless. THEATER: He received a 2016 NY Innovative Theater award for Outstanding Direction of Scott C. Sickles’ Composure at the Workshop Theater. Among his many other theater credits, includes two past collaborations with playwright Laura Rohrman: My Life as You and The Elevator: Secret Thoughts. He also conceived the musical revue Foxy Ladies Love/Boogie 70’s Explosion, which played to sold-out crowds at the legendary Duplex in Greenwich Village. TV: ABC’s All My Children. FILM: What Would Bear Do? and the short, Through the Morning. WEB: season 4 of the indie soap, Empire and the pilot for the off-off Broadway spoof, Off-Off Kilter.

Tell us about your association with Fringe. Is this your first time participating?

Yes, this is my first time directing a Fringe show – in any Fringe festival. However, I did work as a Production Manager for a terrific musical called The Crack in the Ceiling back in 2015 at Fringe NYC. While that show was great, my experience with that festival was less than desirable and left me leery of the Fringe model. Then in 2018, I had just come to LA, Laura (Rohrman) expressed interest in mounting a production of Hoboken. Someone had recommended the Hollywood Fringe, but I wasn’t sold on the idea until I saw the FringeTV highlight reel. That video showed the sense of community and camaraderie that was missing in NY and it opened me up to the idea of doing our show as part of this festival. I have to say; I have not been disappointed. The festival has barely just begun and already we feel the support of the other artists and it’s very exciting to be a part of it.

Describe Laura's piece and why it will rivet audiences as a thriller.

Hoboken, set in 2008, focuses on Jack and Erica who hook-up on Halloween and quickly set up house. We see the highs and lows of their relationship over the course of a year. She dreams of being a famous actress and he’s got the means to make her dream come true. Along for the ride are Erica’s BFF, Sam and her new boyfriend, Niko, a Russian screenwriter who has written a movie the girls want to star in. Being in their late 20s/early 30s, they like to party and live the good life but when an unspeakable act is revealed – all their lives are changed forever.

This is not a thriller in the traditional sense. Yes, we have international intrigue and characters that may not be what they seem. We even have some edge of your seat moments. But we call it a ”high voltage” thriller because there is a layer of the storytelling that takes the play to a most unexpected place. It is quite shocking and people who have seen or read the play, tell me they never saw it coming. It for that element that I think audiences will be riveted.

Tell us about your soap opera background. How does that help in directing this piece?

I fell into the soap world when my college professor urged me to do my required internship at CBS’s As the World Turns. I scoffed at first but after tuning in for two weeks, was hooked. I became fascinated because it seemed like a fantastic merge of the stage and the camera. It was like they were doing a new play every day and three cameras captured it all. The head writer of ATWT at the time, Douglas Marland, was a master storyteller, crafting extensive year long tales and weaving 40-some characters in and out of those stories.

I went right from being an intern to a full-time job and was fortunate enough to train for several different positions. I worked at most of the NY shows, most notably for 14 years at ABC’s All My Children but by 2011 all those shows were off the air and I started working in indie films and got back into theater. But when I got a call from The Young and the Restless last year about a job, I couldn’t wait to come to California. I feel extremely lucky to be a part of their team and am grateful to work in the daytime drama world again.

I know people like to make fun of soaps, I mean they are essentially romantic melodramas but let it be noted that not only are they the oldest form of storytelling on broadcast television but literally every country in the world has this form of serialized stories and in many parts of the world, they are the most popular show on the air. So clearly, there is something about them people connect to.

It is an incredible learning ground: from a production point of view, you are shooting over 100 pages of material each day; and from an acting perspective, there is not a lot of rehearsal, so the actors must make strong choices. Both sides have influenced me as a director: know what you want and be prepared, so you can make it happen. I’m not saying Hoboken is a melodrama but there is certainly a heightened sense of reality depicted in the play. My time in the daytime arena has proved most useful.

Is this a romantic thriller? What other work might you compare it to?

Well Don, that’s a tricky question. I would not describe it as a romantic thriller but more of a toxic love story. It’s hard to compare it to other works, but it has been likened to Patrick Marber’s Closer.

Tell us about your association withe the playwright before this venture.

Laura and I were introduced by a mutual friend when she had a short play in the Samuel French Festival and needed a director. The play, The Elevator: Secret Thoughts, sees 4 people in an elevator and all the dialogue is what they are thinking and because Laura wrote it, they are thinking some pretty crazy things. I was working at AMC at the time and recruited several actors from there to appear in the show, one of whom was Kelli Giddish, who’s currently on Law & Order: SVU. After that, Laura and I decided to mount her play, My Life as You which was quite successful and ran for a month with another AMC actor (and Emmy winner), Jeff Branson. We then did a reading of her play, Reporter Girl, about her grandmother, Dale Messick who created the comic strip Brenda Starr. I believe it was during that time, she started talking about a “crazy” new play she was writing called Hoboken. Over the last ten years, we done several reading and workshops to develop the piece and it’s very exciting to actually get it on its feet.

What real challenges are you facing in preparing this work for the stage?

The biggest challenge has been getting to a 90-minute running time. At the table read, the 84-page script took a little over an hour and a half to read. But since there are huge moments that are just skimmed over in a reading, I knew we needed to cut it down. I just didn’t know where those cuts were going to come from. But in the rehearsal process, we’d breakdown each scene and start looking for things to trim. Each time we’d work a scene, we would find a line here and some words there. The more we worked it, the more the cuts came naturally, and we were able to see how to best shape and concisely tell the story. We are now down to 73 tight pages.

If we had to choose just one piece to see at Fringe, why should we choose Hoboken?

I feel fairly certain that Hoboken is unlike any other show at the Fringe. It is sexy, edgy and has a shocking twist you will be thinking about for some time afterwards. Also, we have a powerhouse cast who are doing incredible work and I have to admit, they are pretty easy on the eyes.

Do you personally have a favorite movie thriller that you like to watch whenever it airs? If so, why this choice?

I am a huge fan of Brian DePalma’s – especially his late 70’s/early 80’s films, like: Dressed to Kill, Body Double and Sisters. I never get tired of watching those. No one works a split screen like DePalma and the scores to his movies are so dramatic. I love it! His films are sexy, sensual thrillers, not unlike Hoboken. However, we dig into darker and more uncharted territory.

What do you hope audiences will take away from viewing Hoboken?

I know I keep eluding to the twist in the show and it deals with something that is rarely spoken about, not just in theater but in general. We hope to shed some light and open the discussion that needs to be had. It is a much bigger problem than is dealt with in the play but to get folks thinking and talking is the ultimate goal.

Anything else you care to add to our discussion that you feel will heighten audience experience of the play?

Yes – take an Uber or Lyft to the theater, parking can be hell around there during the festival. The Fringe shows start on time, so save yourself the aggravation and if you don’t have to look for parking, you can enjoy a cocktail before (and/or after) the show at Fringe Central which is right next door to our theater!
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Hoboken was written by Laura Rohrman, Directed by Fritz Brekeller

Produced by: The Waverly Writers Collective

Featuring: Patrick Cronen, Mary Ellen Everett, Mikaila McMaster and Christopher Valente

Hoboken was developed with RCL Writers Group, The Fold and The New School Alumni Project/DAP Lab with Fritz Brekeller at the helm. It was selected for Rising Sun Theater Company’s Under Rehearsed Reading Series in 2015 and produced as a sold-out workshop at Shelter Studios, NYC with Double Down Productions /Tony White in 2018.

It plays:

Sunday June 9^th, 4:15 pm

Saturday June 15^th, 3:45 pm

Sunday June 16^th, 8:15 pm 

Friday June 21^st, 10:15 pm

Thursday June 27^th, 8:15 pm

Location: Dorie Theatre at The Complex Hollywood, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd.

Tickets are $20  - www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/6009

Director Patrick Burke trained at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Onstage at the Group Rep: A Christmas Carol, Inspecting Carol, Sherlock’s Last Case, Hotel Paradiso, Awake and Sing, Boeing Boeing, Don't Dress For Dinner, That Lovin’ Feelin’, A Nice Family Christmas, Lost In Yonkers, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, and Rumors. 

When did you get interested in puppets and puppetry?

When I was a pre-schooler.  As an infant, then a toddler I had a history of de-hydrating.  I was regularly admitted to the hospital in my hometown of Concord, New Hampshire. The pediatric ward would give each child a puppet when they were discharged from the hospital. By the age of 5, I had a collection and began requesting puppets as gifts.

Did performing with puppets lead you to wanting to work on stage as an actor?  How did that transition happen?

My parents briefly owned and operated a diner.  My mother wrote in my baby book that at the age of 3 they would put me on the counter and I would sing to customers "He's got the whole world in his hands" ! HA ! I guess I was born a ham. I acted in my first non-school play at the age of 7 at the local YMCA.

You’ve been an active member of the Group Rep for years, as an actor, producer, and directing projects.  The Group Rep is not known for having musicals on their season schedules.  How did AVENUE Q get on the 2019 Season Schedule?

I have just always had a passion for AVENUE Q since I saw it on Broadway in August of 2003.  At the Group Rep, members are encouraged to present projects which are performed in front of the company following the Monday night membership meeting. I approached fellow member Paul Cady, a wonderful pianist, and discovered that he loved the show too. Our Co-Artistic Directors and the Artistic council enjoyed the presentation and decided to put it in the 2019 season.

 How did you prepare to direct a musical?  

I have performed in many musicals myself and learned a great deal from the men and women that have directed me.   For this particular show my puppeteer training was a plus. I trained with both Kevin Carlson and the late Michael Earl, both had worked extensively with the Henson Company. Kevin Carlson still puppeteers in Henson Company films.  The late Michael Earl worked on Sesame Street in the 60s and 70s.

What has been your biggest challenge with the show?

The off stage switching of the puppets was a nightmare in the rehearsal process. The actors play more than one character. Often both of their characters are on stage with a different puppeteer holding the puppet. The actor still voices the character even though they are not holding it.  Sometimes I felt like I was doing a puzzle!   I did build two "Kate Monsters" and two "Princetons" just to make entrances and exits a little easier.

I heard that, in order to save several thousands of dollars, you set on the task of building the puppets yourself.   That seems like a daunting task – how did you accomplish it?

Many late nights.  Creating the puppet's face can often be frustrating.  One  little mistake and you have to start over.  I did have a lot of help from fellow GRT members Lisa McGee Mann and Stephanie Colet. We had a great deal of fun together.

What do you want the audience take away to be having seen the show?

In directing this I tried to get my actors to just simply have FUN onstage. I hope the sense of childlike fun will translate to the audience.  I was blessed with an AMAZING cast for this show and can honestly say I love each and every one of them.

Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you?

I have worked for over 20 years in motion picture film restoration.

AVENUE Q runs through July 7th; Fridays and Saturdays 8:00 pm, Sundays 2:00 pm. Not for kids, musical has adult themes, language and full puppet nudity. For tickets and information: www.thegrouprep.com or (818) 763-5990.  Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood 91601. 

Spotlight on Blake Young-Fountain

The Road Theatre Company proudly presents Michael Perlman's At the Table at the Lankershim Arts Center May 17 through July 7. This riveting play deals with six so called liberal friends who realize on a weekend retreat that they are not as enlightened or diverse as they thought. Every week we will spotlight a member of the cast. This week the light shines on Blake Young-Fountain.





Who do you play and what purpose does this character serve?

I play ‘Nicholas’. Nicholas is a truth-teller. Nicholas is the catalyst that helps propel Lauren to begin (or continue) to search for who she really is and what she wants.

What are your challenges as an actor?

To defy the choice to see or play Nicholas as a stereotype: angry black man. Don’t get me wrong, Nicholas has his moments where he feels angry, but there is a pain underneath his anger from the possibility of losing his friend and seeing her not behaving as her authentic self.

I think there is a fine line of “angry black man” who might choose to shout and holler at Lauren; vs the Nicholas who feels angry, but instead of belittling or chastising Lauren, he uses his passion to wake Lauren up, or to jolt Lauren into recognizing her beauty, and to help Lauren propel herself to the point where she can look at herself in the mirror and really be content with what she sees and to be her authentic self.

How are you preparing?

Every time I was in rehearsal and each time I go on stage, I allow myself the space to discover something new. Continuing to be open to finding new things with the character or hearing another character’s line differently. By doing this, it’s helped me to keep the show fresh and brand new each night.

What is the theme or message of the play?

One of the lines in the play is “Who is me?” I think that is the theme of the play. I think each character crosses that bridge where they are forced

Talk about your fellow castmates and your director.

I think another reason I love working on this show, is because I enjoy hanging out with the actors outside of the theatre. There is a genuine camaraderie between each of us. We respect one another. And we find joy in each other’s company. Our off-stage friendship helps to build and reinforce us as an ensemble when we are working together on stage. Our director, Judy (Moreland), who is also an actor — she has been a true gift! She is a director that has a vision. She allowed us (and helped us) as actors to be vulnerable and to “always find the hotter choice.” I loved working with Judy because she really helped bring this show to its full potential —and then, encouraged us to continue to go further .

At the Table will play at the Lankershim Arts Center 5108 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA through July 7. There is street parking but arrive early. For tickets call 818 766-8838.

Dagmar Stansova Brings Loose Underwear to Hollywood Fringe

Writer/actress Dagmar Stansova is about to present her solo play Loose Underwear at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. In our conversation she talks about her show with the utmost honesty and depth.

Dagmar Stansova is an award winning writer and critically acclaimed actor, has performed in leading roles off-Broadway, at LaMama and The Public Theatre and in Los Angeles at the Odyssey and West Coast Ensemble. Her television credits include “One Life to Live” and HBO’s “The Image” with Albert Finney.

She starred in the independent films “Dirty Money” and “Tick Tick Tick” which premiered at Sundance. Other film credits include Coppola’s “Dracula” and “Waist Deep”. She’s written an award winning screenplay about the Velvet Revolution of 1989 which earned her a Writers Guild of America membership.With her mother, father and sister she escaped from communist Czechoslovakia, lived in Israel, Greece, Italy and Germany, learned to dance in Harlem and Haiti, got her BA in Latin American, Portuguese and Brazilian Studies from Brown University, completed her pre-med requirement at Purchase, State University of N.Y. and to the shock of family and friends pursued a career in the Theatre Arts.  She studied acting with the formidable Kim Stanley. For twenty years she avoided writing about this complex issue of how traumas are passed from one generation to the next until she met her director and dramaturg Debra De Liso who “put her hands under her art” and Loose Underwear was born.  

Tell us about your background and how it shows up in your play Loose Underwear.

I am a daughter of a holocaust survivor.  You wouldn’t think there’s much comedy in that. And there isn’t.  But it is a rich terrain for the absurdity, the unfixability, the unknownness, the sublime dysfunctionality of life.  Loose Underwear is a dramatic work that happens to be funny.  It’s about how the daughter of a “New Age” Holocaust survivor - that in itself is funny - is compelled to cha-cha away, yes dance away, the wounds of her ancestors and through the celebratory delight of her loose underwear she finds an unexpected way to lift the weight of ancestral traumas.  I have been obsessed with the idea of how what one generation neglects or covers up, haunts the next. My mother’s generation didn’t have the luxury of dealing with their post war traumas.  As is often the case with children of Holocaust survivors, I took on the weight of my mother’s experience, hoping to unburden her load. I so identified with her trauma that I lived my life as if it was me who survived the Holocaust. There’s all these plays about “The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons” well, my play is about “The shocks of the mothers shall be visited upon the daughters”.

Where did you begin the show and what was the effect on the audience? Explain in detail.

When I performed an excerpt from my show at the Atwater Playhouse I was so happy that people were laughing 

and crying.  It was very important to me that I deliver this heavy subject matter with a light touch. I got to see how strongly it affected people of all ages but especially women. It is a mother daughter story after all.  The mother daughter relationship is a tenuous one, a challenging one for most of the women I talk to.  It’s the strongest bond and the most potentially explosive one.  I’ve put the mother daughter bond into the context of the Holocaust and what’s ironic is that my mother, the “hidden child” Holocaust survivor, is the comic relief.  The holocaust is a heavy matter and I believe you can’t throw it at people without giving them a place to release the tension, a place to rest, a place to remember that laughter lurks in the darkest of situations.

Tell us what happened in real life.

In real life, it was my father who was the comic relief.  He was not Jewish but he was my mother’s greatest champion. He was an equal opportunity humorist.  He would make the same irreverent jokes whether in the company of the guy who collected our garbage or the Pope.  This humor got him in a lot of trouble with the Communists and if we would not have escaped from Czechoslovakia he would have ended up in a labor camp in Siberia.  But even if that would have happened I have no doubt that my father would have kept his humor.

What's funny about your show?

I think what’s funny about my show is that  I don’t try to cover or pretty up the absurdity and paradox of real life.  I don’t want to give away the climax of the show so I’m going to shut up.  Come and enjoy.  It’s funny in the way that real life is funny when you find yourself in moments where everything is contradicting  itself and all you can do is laugh, the only way out or in is to loosen your underwear.  It’s the celebratory spirit of loose underwear that kept me sane, that kept the spirit of celebration alive in me.  And for this I thank my father and my grandma.  My father for introducing the concept to me as a little girl when he said that the key to happiness is “Loose balls, like blowing in the wind!”  It was clear to me that I didn’t have any balls to make loose so I translated his masculine concept into a feminine one. I asked my grandma to sew me some underwear.  “Make it loose grandma! Make it loose!”  And she did. 

Talk more about the meaning behind loose underwear and the humor.

Loose underwear blowing in the wind is a symbol of freedom, of an open mind, of a celebratory stance even when faced with trying to exorcise the homeless ghosts of World War II.  In my later years, which is now, I took that even a step further.  Women’s lib had nothing on me.  They took off their bras.  Well, I took off my underwear.  I went from Loose Underwear to No Underwear.  So my loose underwear raised on an invisible stick, blowing in the wind like a flag of surrender, became my approach to life, to art, to death, to the whole shebang we call existence.

On my father’s side I come from a lineage of drummers.  they were village announcers, like a walking newspaper.  So technically you could say I come from a  line of journalists, or newspaper men.  It wasn’t about the facts of the story it was about how that story could serve the people listening to it.  If it was bad news there would always have to be a joke inserted.  Jokes and humor and parodies were considered a digestive aid for bad news.  

What excites you most about your story?

What I love about my story is that it takes you into some unusual terrains. From communist Czechoslovakia, to Harlem, from exorcisms to orgasms, from peeing rituals to poetic soliloquies.  All within a framework of strong contrast between dark tragedy and absurd comedy.   We can’t talk about the Holocaust and the Jewish experience without getting real about it and yet I think ultimately the play is uplifting and I hope it gives the audience chills like it gives me at rehearsal. 

Is it appropriate for all ages?

It’s great for teens because they’re hormones are waking up and popping and this show is all about addressing the authentic feelings we have inside of us.  If I had a daughter, this is the kind of play I would want her to see. Even though it’s a very specific story, I feel it’s universal.  We all search for freedom. We all search for happiness. We all have parents that we love or hate but eventually need to separate from. What are we here for? Except to enjoy life?  And you can’t enjoy life when you are weighed down and loaded with family baggage.   But this isn’t about throwing things away.  What excites me about this story is that it is a story of separation, a story of divorcing your parent but at the same time it’s a story of marrying your own humanity.  Hopefully this play will encourage people to choose loose underwear instead of tight ones.

What do you hope will happen as a result of the Fringe exposure?

My vision for the show is that I get to do it off-Broadway on my old stomping grounds in New York City. I’m also a screenwriter and would love to turn it into a film.  And of course I would love to have full houses for each performance.  

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Buy your tickets at: https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/5795?tab=tickets

Dagmar's Fringe link: 

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/5795

Dagmar's Facebook page: 

https://www.facebook.com/pg/looseunderwear/events/?ref=page_internal

Loose Underwear plays at The New American Theatre 

1312 N. Wilton Place Los Angeles 90028. 

Saturday  June  8, 2019 - 3:30 pm

Thursday June 13, 2019 - 9:00 pm

Sunday    June 16, 2019 - 6:30 pm

Sunday    June 23, 2019 - 7:30 pm

Saturday  June 29, 2019 - 5:00 pm

Jessie Knowles Interview

Accomplished stage actress Jessie Knowles brings her courageous hit solo show Jessie's Messy Mind that sheds light on bipolar and schizophrenia by taking patrons on an eye-opening and mind-bending trip through her truly unique experience. 

At a talkback after a show at her school, the presenter asked the audience if anyone had experienced a time when something they considered a flaw turned out to be an asset. Jessie Knowles raised her hand and boldly told the audience that her bipolar and schizophrenia actually heightened her creativity and spiritual insight. The room went silent and Jessie noticed that afterward people either treated her differently or avoided her altogether. She realized the lack of understanding people had about mental health…and that she could do something about it.

The result is Jessie’s Messy Mind, Knowles’ hit solo show that makes its next stop on its national tour at studio/stage this June as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival. In our conversation Jessie brings our readers to a closer understanding of the illnesses.

Describe your illness for our readers and how long it has been part of you life.

First off, I discourage the use of the word “illness,” as I do not believe that the conditions are necessarily “illnesses” or “abnormalities.” I believe every mind is different from every other mind, so I use the term “mental difference.” If we immediately classify those differences as illnesses then we are looking at them through the lens of wanting to “cure” or “fix” a problem. But part of my “problem” has been the inability of others, and by association myself, to accept these differences as a normal part of my unique personality. My experiences have been hard for me to understand and I have used doctors and medication to regulate the “symptoms,” as they manifest quite strong at times, but it was only when I was able to shed the idea that I was somehow “sick” or “broken,” or relegated to a life of “suffering,” that I was truly able to accept myself and embrace my differences as unique and valuable, even as a natural part of the process of human evolution. 

I was hospitalized at age 15 for a week and that was a very unique adventure.  I was definitely out of place in that environment but my parents and therapists were trying everything to help me make sense of myself and my experience.

In my sophomore year of college, I was finally medicated for ADHD, which saved my academic career and got me off academic probation, imposed by the Emerson College Honors Program which demanded a 3.3 GPA or above. 

The next year, I had my first manic episode, which included severe delusions (but no hallucinations) and centered around the stress of casting my very first presidential vote in 2000.  And the fact that I was trying an experimental cure for endometriosis called Lupron. 

At that time, I saw a doctor who diagnosed me with bipolar and prescribed Depakote and Risperdal, which I hated. They made me drool on myself as a zombie on the couch. Eventually, I stopped taking those. I finished my senior year a semester late and then fell into a depression that caused me to move back home. 

In 2003, I had another manic episode, with delusions, and was hospitalized again. That trip to the hospital started as a trip to rehab and ended in the psychiatric ward. I banged on the door to that wing and said “Let me in, I belong in there, not out here!”

I experienced depression and substance abuse issues until I had another episode in 2006. In 2007, I began to develop auditory hallucinations and l believe I received a dual diagnosis of bipolar and schizophrenia.  I had another episode in 2009, then again in 2011.  At some point, the diagnosis of Schizo-affective was mentioned.  But that’s so rare that people seem to understand the experience more as the separate diagnoses of schizophrenia and bipolar. 

I had some severe emotional trauma in 2012 and fell into a depression. By 2014, I had risen to an extreme manic state but refused to go to the hospital. That was my first time with extreme visual hallucinations. I entered into a toxic relationship in 2015, which caused my most severe manic episode to date, and was accepted into Parkridge Valley, a private facility that takes in state health care patients in extreme circumstances.  The toxic relationship continued through the time I was in grad school until my show and I had another severe episode in the fall of 2016, one month before the premiere of the show. 

Two things became very clear to me at that point.  First, I was much more protective of my time, and second, the draw of the euphoria of the manic rise had lost its appeal. So while I have been experiencing auditory hallucinations regularly since 2016, I have been able to avoid a delusional state by being committed to sticking with what I know to be true and carefully disregarding thoughts that try to lure me into a false reality.  It’s not easy, but so much information about the way thoughts and emotions can trick us has been revealed to me, from this process. I think I am better off for it. 

Being bipolar affects both men and women and many do not know they have it.  Is medicine affective or not?

Bipolar is hard to detect without the schizo-affective or bipolar 2 symptoms that manifest as severe delusions or hallucinations.  Many people just feel heightened, or like they have excess energy, or they are unusually paranoid bordering on conspiracy obsessions, suspecting friends and family of doing something to harm them on some way.  And then at other times they feel depressed and unable to find energy for normal functioning, but they can’t really identify why.  I go into a more detailed description of bipolar in the show, that many therapists and psychologists said made some things about bipolar much clearer for them, that even they didn’t know before seeing the show. 

Medication has been helpful for me but only after years of trial and error.  I had to find a really good psychiatrist who listened to me and respected my perspective, who treated me as a patient and not “another wacko wanting drugs.”  Some of them certainly made me feel that way.  I had to switch doctors a lot because of my state insurance. Many doctors would take me off something that was working for me because they use a different medicine or they have a policy that they don’t prescribe it.  But I have been with the same doctor now for 3 ½ years and he allows me to be an active part of my own treatment.  For my sometimes quite severe symptoms, I take 8 different medications, all of which I feel are useful and help me in different ways for managing different symptoms, and have easy to manage side effects. I also take melatonin and B vitamins. Some of my medicines are really expensive but my insurance will cover them. I know not everyone has great options for treatment, but not everyone needs medications to regulate their symptoms and slow things down. Sometimes for a manic state, removing excess stimulus, focusing on deep breathing, meditation, yoga, consciously calming your thoughts or listening to soothing music can help slow things down. Good sleep is a must! The best medicine! It’s hard because at first manic symptoms can be enticing.  It was when I was able to consciously resist the urge to follow the rise that I became stable, with or without medication.

For depression, I’d recommend lots of water, exercise, sunshine, funny movies, support from loved ones or a therapist and compassion for oneself, even in the hard times. And repeating the mantra, “this too shall pass,” has helped lift me out of depression. But as you’ll see in my show, sometimes you have to go through it to get over it.  I just try to have fun with the experience. But of course, if medication is an option and there’s a trust with your healthcare provider, I would say that it could be the boost someone needs to reclaim control of their life. 

But if you notice a negative result or (?) harsh side effects or even no (?) at all, speak up!  

When did you decide to write a show about this?  Talk in detail about the show and what you have put into it. 

I decided to do the show my first day of my first grad school residency for Goddard College in 2012.  I had come to the school planning to rewrite a play I wrote years earlier during my independent study at Emerson College, but because of my condition and the fact that I had just spent the summer experiencing the highest height of euphoria followed by the crushing low of heartbreak, I was a huge mess when I arrived in the fall. 

The first weekend was spent watching the graduating student’s presentations.  A student named Mindy Dillard did a very cool multimedia one-woman show called Poisoned Apple Medicine, using the original music and animated art that she developed at Goddard. It was about how fairy tale stereotypes of women affect young girls and the development of the female psyche, a message I loved. I immediately thought, “doing a show like this would be awesome.”  Then she asked the audience a question, “Has there been a time when something you considered to be a flaw turned out to be an asset?” No one stepped up to answer, but I knew mine. I raised my hand, “I have bipolar and schizophrenia and I think it really enhances my creative inspiration, spiritual insight, intellectual curiosity, emotional understanding, etc.” I said something to that effect. And what I said remains true. But the room fell silent. Mindy had no idea what to say.  It was awkward but I‘m used to awkward. Then she said, “Great! Anyone else?” And we moved on. But people treated me differently because of that admission. The school was small, only 35 - 40 students at my campus. And I knew by the end of the week that I had to change my plans and do the show that would become Jessie’s Messy Mind.

I developed my comedic persona to include all the characters that I like to do as I talk to myself and “the voices.” I learned to be friends with them because they weren’t going anywhere. I knew it wouldn’t work for them to be a “bad thing.”  At the end, during my final two semesters, I took all the pieces that I had written during various states of sanity and wove them together, with the characters interacting and telling the story. I even included some of the scribbled nonsensical stuff just because that’s what it’s really like.   

It turned out to be super funny and fun to perform.  It’s a bold move to put all that “crazy” out there and say “I’m okay with being this way.” But so many people who have lived a life using words like “illness,” “suffering” and “broken” about themselves have come to me and said that they finally understood a part of themselves that they’ve been trained to deny and suppress, or fear.  I’m not afraid of what I am, but the writing of the show was a process of figuring out what that is exactly, and then turning it into a show that would be entertaining, and not just me treating the audience like my therapist! I already had the therapy! The show is the beauty I found at the end!  And I love performing it. It’s scary at the beginning but once I get going… it’s so fun.  

Talk about your mother directing you and the impact that this has had for the show.  She understands you.  Does that make it easier or harder on you to produce the desired affects? 

I absolutely love working with my mom as my director. She has been working professionally as a director, actress, musician, singer, and playwright for longer than I have been alive.  My first memories are being in theaters in Los Angeles as a child as she directed her original musicals, That Other Woman’s Childand Smoky Mountain Suite with her writing partner, composer George S. Clinton, who lives in LA. And has tickets to my show!!

In one of the first musicals I did at ChattState, as Maisie in The Boyfriend, there was a nasty rumor going around that I was only hired because I was the director’s daughter.  But what they did not know was that my mom left the decision to hire me up to the musical director and choreographer.  She’s always been careful like that. I have had to earn my roles like everyone else.

My mom has seen me through a lot of what I talk about in the show, so she understands the root of the stories that I tell and has helped me capture the essence of those moments while keeping me grounded in the present performance, so I don’t get lost in my memory of it. I’m not sure if that makes sense.  But it’s easy to get lost when performing these altered states and she has been instrumental in making sure the audience feels safe and taken care of as I lead them on this unique journey. 

And she sure knows humor!  She finds those moments of comic gold and tunes them so they are subtle enough not to knock you over the head.  She brings the authenticity out in those funny moments, so even I find myself giggling on stage as I perform them.  She’s really a brilliant director and artist and I am so lucky that she was able to take this experimental show, that was very “messy” when I began, and clean up the performance, cut out the confusion and bring precision to the performance so I don’t look like a complete mess on stage!

If we have to pick the Fringe show to see, why should it be yours? 

There will be a lot of great shows at the Fringe, but I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like this one.  Aside from the fact that you’ll see aspects of mental health conditions that most people know very little about and as you see these totally new ways that the mind can operate and explore itself, you’ll be totally entertained and I feel pretty certain that you’ll laugh a lot.  But on a deeper level, what we are calling “mental illness” is on the rise, especially things like ADHD, anxiety and depression.  And more people are discovering that they or a loved one are exhibiting the symptoms of bipolar.  We still know very little about how to properly treat these conditions and as a result, suicide rates are also rising. I’ve lost two good friends to suicide and was devastated to lose Robin Williams just a little bit before I did the first performance of this show in 2016. I believe that he had been struggling with bipolar for most of his life.

The way we talk about mental health needs to change.  Right now we use words like “illness” and “suffering.” I know all too well that often this is the truth of the experiences, but we need a paradigm shift.  And that’s what my show can provide.  So many audience members have approached me after the show saying they are so grateful to have a new, more positive way to approach their struggles, either with a new or existing diagnosis or with caring for a loved one.  Many people have told me that “everyone needs to see this show!”  Even mental health care providers have expressed that they think all doctors, psychiatrists and counselors should see this show. One even suggested that it play regularly on PBS. How that’s supposed to happen, I know not. I’ll settle for Netflix.

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Jessie’s Messy Mind ia written and performed by Jessie Knowles

Directed by Sherry Landrum

Produced by Jessie Knowles and Bridgett Bryant

Executive Producers: SunVine Productions (Rex Knowles and Canedy Knowles)

Part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival

Saturday, June 8 – 11 p.m. (*preview)

Tuesday, June 18 – 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, June 22 – 1 p.m.

Monday, June 24 – 9:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 27 – 10 p.m.

studio/stage

520 N. Western Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90004

$20

Pay what you can options available

FOR TICKETS AND MORE INFORMATION:

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/6004