Every Brilliant Thing at Eastern Virginia Medical School

Every Brilliant Thing tour performed at Eastern Virginia Medical School on November 29, 2023 to a great turnout!

Photos courtesy of EVMS.

Watch our segment featured on WAVY TV here!

The Virginian-Pilot: One-person show ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ offers Navy a fresh approach to mental wellness

Nine performances, using improv, audience interaction and comedy, tell one person’s story of growing up with a mother who has suicidal depression.

Playing the father in an awkward scene in the family car is audience member and senior chief Jean Bissainthe, alongside Candunn Jennette in her performance of “Every Brilliant Thing” on Oct. 25 at Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads.

Ice cream. Sunlight. Old people holding hands. Bubble wrap. Friendly cats. Track seven on every great record.

Those are just a few of the million brilliant things in life that the Virginia Stage Company reminded sailors to count during a Wednesday performance at Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads in Norfolk.

“I have some advice for anyone who’s been contemplating suicide,” said Candunn Jennette, the Virginia Stage performer who narrated the show. “Don’t do it. Things get better. It may not always get brilliant, but they do get better.”

Candunn Jennette, with the Virginia Stage Company, talks passionately about her special list during her performance of “Every Brilliant Thing” on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, at Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot)

Roughly 50 sailors attended the one-hour, one-person performance of “Every Brilliant Thing,” which tells one person’s story of growing up with a mother who has suicidal depression.

The show, which uses improv, audience interaction and comedy, was the first of eight taking place at Hampton Roads military installations over the next month. The performances offer the Navy a fresh approach to conversations about mental wellness as the service undertakes a massive effort to change the way it treats sailors experiencing mental health crises.

“This is a piece that is meant to be the beginning of a conversation, not the end of it,” said Tom Quaintance, producing artistic director for the VSC.

Candunn Jennette speaks as a child to a therapist’s sock puppet named Rusty during her performance of “Every Brilliant Thing.” (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot)

Virginia Stage Company began looking at small cast shows on the heels of the pandemic. When Quaintance read the script, he was immediately struck by the way the play tackles some of life’s most difficult topics — depression, suicide and loss — in a warm and accessible way. He had lost a sister to suicide.

“This show, while it takes you to some tough places, it doesn’t leave you there,” Quaintance said.

The play was first performed at the Wells Theatre a year and a half ago. As mental health crises became more prevalent during pandemic-related isolation, Quaintance said the theater company had the idea to bring the show to the military community.

“We can go in, start a conversation and, we hope, make a difference in how people think and talk about mental health and suicide,” Quaintance said.

“Every Brilliant Thing” was performed three times aboard the USS George H.W. Bush in June. The series will be performed at Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command, Naval Station Norfolk, Naval Air Station Oceana and Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek throughout November.

Candunn Jennette reads through the notes she jotted down while growing up as the narrator in “Every Brilliant Thing.” (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot)

Throughout the play, the performer narrates her perspective of her mother’s struggles with suicidal depression. The perspective evolves and deepens as the narrator ages from 7 years old to her mid-30s and experiences her own accomplishments, love, loss and mental health struggles. But each time, the narrator returns to a list she is creating of every brilliant thing about life, adding new brilliant things.

Water fights. Really good oranges. Wearing a cape. Peeing in the ocean and nobody knows. The list goes on.

Jamie Sosaya, a boatswain’s mate master chief, called the show “phenomenal” and said it was the best suicide prevention workshop she has been part of in her 23-year naval career.

“It hits home,” Sosaya said after the show, with tears in her eyes.

Part of what made it so successful, Lt. Cmdr. Katie Erwin said, is the audience interaction. Previous workshops used PowerPoint presentations or seminar formats, she said, but with “Every Brilliant Thing,” members of the audience are pre-selected to act as a veterinarian, the narrator’s father, husband and guidance counselor. Those selected are guided through improvised dialogue.

Actor Candunn Jennette circles the room to high-five every audience member during “Every Brilliant Thing.” (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot)

Erwin was chosen to act as the narrator’s guidance counselor.

“It was very heartfelt and it could relate to a lot of different people on a lot of different levels,” Erwin said. “Suicide is a tough subject to broach, but it was a lighthearted conversation and presentation.”

Quartermaster First Class Jarien Marquez said the show opens the door for conversations about mental health, whether sailor to sailor or friend to friend.

“People feel like there isn’t room for people to have that conversation, but this teaches everybody how to start the conversation and how to use the resources we have to help in those situations,” Marquez said.

After her performance of “Every Brilliant Thing,” Candunn Jennette hugs audience member Jean Bissainthe, a senior chief who played the role of her father. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot)

The sailors also took home personal lessons for their mental wellness. The biggest one, Marquez said, is to remember to count the small things in life.

“A whole bunch of little things can make up one really big thing,” Marquez said. “So if you can count the little things, the little blessings in life, it will help you realize it’s going to be all right.”

Resources for service members and veterans struggling with mental health issues, including 24-hour crisis hotlines, include:

• The Military Crisis Line: call 988, Ext. 1

• Military OneSource: 800-342-9647

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 — call or text

Article by Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com

Tickets: The performances at local military installations are open to base personnel. The performances at Eastern Virginia Medical School and the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk are open to the general public. Those are free to attend, courtesy of a Sentara Health sponsorship, but registration is requested.

Details: To register or for more information, visit the “Every Brilliant Thing” tour page at vastage.org/ebttour. Additional performance dates and locations will be posted to the website. Those interested in booking the tour to come to their location can email ebt@vastage.org.

American Theatre Magazine: The Top 10* Most-Produced Plays of the 2023-24 Season

The Top 10* Most-Produced Plays of the 2023-24 Season

Dramas and comedies with a political edge top this year’s list (*actually 12 due to ties).

OCTOBER 18, 2023

BY ROB WEINERT-KENDT

1. What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck (16 productions)

2. Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage (14)

3. POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive by Selina Fillinger (12)

4. The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power (12)

5. Dial M for Murder adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from Frederick Knott’s original play (9*)

6. Fat Ham by James Ijames (9)

7. The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse (8)

8. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical by Douglas McGrath (book), Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil (music & lyrics) (8)

9. Sanctuary City by Martyna Majok (8)

10. Cabaret by Joe Masteroff (book), John Kander (music), Fred Ebb (lyrics) (7)

11. Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe (7)

12. The Rocky Horror Show by Richard O’Brien (7)

*In fact there will actually be 10 productions of Dial M for Murder in the coming season, but Norfolk’s Virginia Stage Company will use Knott’s original script rather than the Hatcher adaptation.

Satire is what closes on Saturday night, goes an old theatrical saw, and more recently we’ve heard from some quarters that theatregoers would rather not have politics mixed in with their entertainment. Well, if this year’s list of most-produced plays is any indication, TCG member theatres are banking that that’s not the case—or at least not entirely. As in past years, this list reflects a healthy mix of main course and dessert, of challenge and escape (if you don’t recall, last year’s top three plays were Clyde’s, Chicken & Biscuits, and Clue).

The list starts with three plays by women, all with a political valence: Heidi Schreck’s brilliantly personal yet pointed What the Constitution Means to Me, Lynn Nottage’s sneaky allegory about forgiveness, Clyde’s, and Selina Fillinger’s raucous farce POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. The list also includes the bravura economic history, The Lehman Trilogy, the blistering satire of “woke” white folks, The Thanksgiving Play, and Martyna Majok’s moving piece about immigration, Sanctuary City. James Ijames’s Fat Ham is arguably a hybrid case—an examination of toxic masculinity and Black manhood that morphs into a dance party (spoiler alert). The rest includes a straight-up mystery (Dial M for Murder, remarkably its first appearance on our lists), the improvisatory play Every Brilliant Thing (its first reappearance on the list since 2019), and substantive musicals: the cautionary Cabaret, the empowering Beautiful, and, in an age of renewed moral panic about drag shows and gender fluidity, the freshly edgy Rocky Horror Show.

These listings were compiled from a total of 1,560 full shows (productions with runs of at least a week) at 558 TCG member theatres all across the U.S. as they appear in our Fall 2023 print issue. (The listings you can see here may not match the printed listings exactly.) It should be noted that the former number is up from last year’s 1,298, though still well short of the roster in the 2019-20 season, which was 2,229. There’s still some recovery in store for U.S. theatres, it’s clear. As usual we excluded productions of A Christmas Carol and plays by Shakespeare from this list. (For the record: This year, the former numbers 43, the latter 40.)

And of course, as meaningful as these lists can be as a snapshot of the industry’s tastes, please don’t skip the many pages of listings in our print edition (or, again, scroll through these listings). To my eyes they paint a picture of a sprawling and thriving American theatre, which we’re grateful to cover, in bad times and good.

Rob Weinert-Kendt (he/him) is the editor-in-chief of American Theatre.