SCHIZO is currently available for tour. Click here to see an excerpt from the show.
- Premiered August 14-29, 2015 at Shaking the Tree Theatre & Studio. Talk backs followed every performance during this run.
- Shortened version toured Portland-area high schools, universities, and youth organizations, spring 2015, Mind Over Matter.
- Excerpts performed at the Robert Rauschenberg SEED Summit 2015 on Captiva Island, November 2015.
WINNER, Best Actress in a Play, BroadwayWorld Portland 2015: Katie Watkins, SCHIZO
"Watkins is an excellent physical performer, her movements as precise and expressive as a dancer." - Jonathan Frochtzwajg, The Oregonian
"...affecting, expressionistic... haunting, thoughtful... Watkins is a captivating performer." - Leela Ginelle, PQ Monthly
"[Watkins's] ...provocative performance proves an effective vehicle for illustrating a topic that is often ignored." - Penelope Bass, Willamette Week
"Through this short, but powerful piece, she is able to express in often non-verbal and non-linear ways, the struggles of an individual attempting to deal with the 'windmills of the mind.'" - Dennis Sparks, Dennis Sparks Reviews
"Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothes, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns."
- Anne Sexton "Wanting to Die"
Schizophrenia doesn't only live in the mind; it pervades every aspect of reality. My younger brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 11, a mental disorder that usually presents itself in early adulthood. For this 11-year-old and his family, schizophrenia became a waking nightmare. Between hospital stints and balancing medications, high school and everyday life, my brother strove to maintain some semblance of normalcy. From the outside, few could suspect the daily internal chaos he was working so hard to handle and hide.
SCHIZO, an original performance, provides an insight into the normalcy and banality of that life as my little brother battles the chaos in his mind. Part documentary and part non-narrative, movement-based theatre, this show will include simulated auditory hallucinations, songs, movement-based representations of the disorder, and more.
Each performance of SCHIZO includes talk back guests from mental health-related organizations throughout Greater Portland. For the August 2015 performances, those speakers included performer Katie Watkins, artist Melody Gilman-Frederick of NAMI Multnomah, Dr. Jonathan P. Betlinski, Chief Medical Officer and Neil Falk, Associate Medical Director of Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, and Gayathri Ramprasad of ASHA International. These talk backs included clinical perspectives on schizophrenia and other mental health disorders, allowing for audience questions and response to the performance and their own experiences.
Visit our Indiegogo campaign: Click here to support the show and its future iterations.
Thanks to our supporters: Shelly Elman, Yen Nguyen, Alexandra Leigh Ramirez, Miranda Drake, Val Liptak, Damian Thompson, Jeffrey Watkins, Robert Nelson, Jeff and Esther Clark, Timothy Reynolds, Steve Goodson, Calli Dunaway, Kate Bredeson, Steven Cantor, Todd Van Voris, Nicole Henninger, Amy Cuomo, Colby Watkins, Elaine Braley, Andrew Chance, Jonathan McShane, Sean Andries.
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR $1000+ SUPPORTERS:
Harold Goldstein and Carol Streeter
Nikolai Lesnikov
Funded in part by a 2015 RACC Project Grant.