One Nation, Under God

LAC's Every Brilliant Thing Returns

The Local Advisory Council (LAC) has once again invited the team of Montana theater artists Rosie Seitz Ayers and Ryan Eggensperger to bring back their anti-suicide production, playwright Duncan MacMillan’s “Every Brilliant Thing” in an effort to make suicide prevention and awareness accessible and engaging to the communities.

Tragically, Montana holds the distinction of having the nation’s highest per capita suicide rate, (29.8 people per 100,000), which is over twice the national average, according to KTVQ.

The Play Synopsis as per the press release: A seven year old comes home from school to learn that Mom is in the hospital. Dad says “she’s done something stupid.” The kid begins to create a list for Mom. A list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for. 1) Ice cream 2) Water fights 3) Staying up past your bedtime to watch TV. As time passes and the list grows, what began as a naive attempt to make Mom happy becomes an epic chronicle of life’s little wonders. A tribute to the irrepressible resilience inside all of us and the capacity to find delight in the everyday, Every Brilliant Thing is a funny, clever, and surprisingly uplifting play about the lengths we go to for those we love. Put this show at the top of your list!

On Thursday, May 5, at 6:30 p.m. the powerful program will be presented at the Malta High School Auditorium. At 6 p.m. the Local Advisory Council will welcome the audience with an assortment of their favorite finger foods. There will be an opportunity for a free-will offering.

As to the show it is written by award-winning British playwright Duncan Macmillan with UK comedian Jonny Donahoe and alternately starring Rosie Seitz Ayers and Ryan Eggensperger. This powerful one-actor show explores mental health, families and the ways we love in a hilarious and uplifting production for both adults and teenagers.

Every Brilliant Thing playwright Duncan Macmillan said his aim was “to break down the stigma surrounding mental illness by creating new ways to discuss it openly – and by making people laugh.”

Duncan himself stated, “I don’t think I’ve laughed as much making a piece of work as I have with this show, and yet we had quite a seriousness of purpose. We wanted to talk about depression in a way that was accurate and which didn’t alienate an audience.

Considering how common depression is, it’s surprising how much stigma there still is around it, how reluctant people are to discuss it. We kept reminding ourselves of the aims of the piece – to make people feel OK to talk and think about depression, to talk about it responsibly and accurately, and to provide a few tools with which to think and talk about it. That sounds quite worthy now I say it out loud, but we mean it.”

This presentation should be seen by many more, including, most importantly, Montana’s young people, as Montana ranks fourth in the nation for suicide completion among those ages 10-24 (17 per 100,000). Our community has lost far, far too many to suicide, and many that have attempted face memories that are difficult, if not impossible to erase or escape.

There is growing concern about the issues of depression and suicide idealization, and efforts are being made to end that trend.

Especially in our youth, the rising number of attempts at suicide are alarming. Families and communities are welcome to join the presentation. Feel free to ask friends, neighbors and family and bring a guest. Make it a “date night.”

 

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