Every Brilliant Thing/The List

This play changes lives. Its practice saves them.

Mental illness is an intensely difficult subject-- difficult to live with, difficult to talk about, to write about, to stage. I first encountered this play in 2016, after the first of what would turn into many debilitating battles with depression. It is a senseless and unending and cruel thing to be at the mercy of. I've returned to the script often in the years since; it never fails to astonish me with its humor, its hurt, its immediacy, and playfulness. Being hounded by the Black Dog-- as they say-- is a harrowing and exhausting way to live. But it also inevitably demands that we see and realize all that makes life worth living.

It only ever takes one thing-- one brilliant thing, brilliant friend, brilliant moment-- to save a life. There are times, of course, when not a single thing can be found-- a sort of fumble in the dark that finds nothing. That is, of course, why we write The List. Why we keep it handy, pass it back and forth, read and reread, slip it into a back pocket, an open hand, the pages of a book.

I am incredibly thankful to be here-- and I'm glad you're here with me. Truly a brilliant thing. Cheers to tomorrow