The Manic Monologues is a play created and premiered by scientist and mental health advocate Zachary Burton and medical professional Elisa Hofmeister. The play consists of autobiographical accounts of mental illness from people diagnosed with mental health conditions, the family and friends of mental health patients, and health professionals. The play explores diagnoses including bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in stories that are by turns tragic, humorous, and uplifting.
The play aims to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and illness. The Washington Post calls it "a play that hopes to smash the stigma surrounding mental illness".
Since premiering in California in 2019, the play has been performed in over a dozen U.S. states and in countries across Africa, Australasia, Europe, and North America. The play has garnered international acclaim including as a nominee for the 2021 Drama League Awards, winner of the 2023 Kenya Theatre Awards, winner of the 2024 BroadwayWorld Awards, and various other accolades.
Background Burton and Hofmeister wrote the play in the wake of Burton's 2017 bipolar diagnosis while a doctoral student at Stanford University. They drew inspiration from The Vagina Monologues, and incorporated approximately 20 true stories of mental illness provided by individuals across the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere. During development, Burton and Hofmeister assembled a team of renowned advisors who consulted on the script and production. The founding team included psychiatrist and Stanford professor Rona Hu (who served as advisor to the first season of Netflix's 13 Reasons Why), psychologist and UC Berkeley professor Stephen P. Hinshaw (who also introduced Burton to Glenn Close; Hinshaw and Burton served as advisors to Close’s mental health nonprofit Bring Change to Mind), advocate and performer Victoria Maxwell, editor Tom Shroder, physician and Emmy Award winner Seema Yasmin, and playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Freed, with later additions to the advisory team including advocate Kenidra Woods and retired U.S. Army Major General Gregg F. Martin.
Productions
Beginnings (2019–2020) The Manic Monologues premiered May 2019 (Mental Health Awareness Month) at Stanford University’s 192-seat Pigott Theatre. The play ran for three fully sold-out nights, to standing ovations and recognition from local media, NPR, The Washington Post, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. In November 2019, the play was produced by Open Door Rep at Franklin Center Theater in Des Moines, Iowa. The sold-out production raised thousands of dollars for NAMI, and won a Cloris Award for “outstanding contributions to theatre in greater Des Moines” at the 2020 Cloris Leachman Excellence in Theatre Arts Awards (in 2022, Next to Normal also won a Cloris Award). In February 2020, members of the original Stanford cast (with direction by Burton) presented the Los Angeles premiere of the play as a sold-out matinee at UCLA’s 278-seat James Bridges Theater, at the invitation of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
Virtual productions (2020–2022) During the global COVID-19 pandemic, Burton and additional adapters of The Manic Monologues produced various virtual and digital formats.
In August 2020, following in-person performance cancellations (in North Carolina, for example), Burton led development of a film adaptation of The Manic Monologues, with filming taking place in Orlando, Florida. In September 2020, the film premiered as keynote for the 30th Annual Executive Conference on Mission of AdventHealth, a 50-hospital nonprofit healthcare system. Screenings quickly followed for numerous major conferences and symposia, including in October 2020 for Mental Illness Awareness Week via Stanford Medicine’s Medicine & the Muse Program, in November 2020 as closing keynote at the Year-End Executive Meeting of the Adventist North American Division, in December 2020 as closing at California Hospital Association’s 15th Annual Behavioral Health Care Symposium keynote for 400 hospitals (representing over 97% of patient beds in California), as plenary session for the 2021 Mayo Clinic Annual Humanities in Medicine Symposium , as session topic for the May 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, and for NAMI San Francisco’s May 2021 Mental Health Awareness Month program featuring Burton, Hu, and author Sophie Littlefield. The film has since shown for thousands, including as frequent programming for medical schools (e.g., Stanford School of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital, Columbia University and the Columbia-WHO Center for Global Mental Health, and the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU), universities and colleges (e.g., in Bowdoin College Visual Arts Center’s 300-seat Kresge Auditorium, in Viterbo University Fine Arts Center’s 170-seat Nola Starling Recital Hall), and public health and mental health advocacy organizations (e.g., Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services; Orygen Global’s inaugural 2021 Youth Mental Health Advocacy Fellowship and inaugural 2022 ASEAN-Australia Mental Health Fellowship, in partnership with the Australian Government), as well as corporate keynote events, such as for the World Bank Group’s inaugural Ethics and Internal Justice Week, WBG-International Finance Corporation programing, and as keynote for the 2023 global launch of World Bank’s 170-country Stigma Reduction Campaign.
In February 2021, two-time Tony Award-winning McCarter Theatre Center launched the play as an interactive "Virtual Theatrical Experience" in partnership with Princeton University, The 24 Hour Plays, and Innovations in Socially Distant Performance. Direction was provided by “form-busting” director Elena Araoz, with the creative and production team including Lucille Lortel Award-winning and two-time Obie Award-winning multimedia designer Jared Mezzocchi, musician and composer Nathan Leigh, MIT Media Lab alumna and computer programmer Jackie Liu, Broadway producer Debbie Bisno, and Burton himself. Brain health nonprofit One Mind was a production co-sponsor, with Bisno and Burton involving One Mind’s media lead, two-time Peabody and three-time Emmy Award-winner Dalton Delan. The cast featured Broadway veterans and film and television stars, including 2021 Tony Award nominee Ato Blankson-Wood, Maddie Corman, Anna Belknap, Tessa Albertson, Mike Carlsen, Alexis Cruz, Mateo Ferro, Sam Morales, Bi Jean Ngo, Armando Riesco, Jon Norman Schneider, Obie and Audie Award-winner Heather Alicia Simms, Lortel nominee C. J. Wilson, Tony nominee Craig Bierko, as well as Obie, Drama Desk, and Tony Award-winner Wilson Jermaine Heredia (1996 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical for his role as Angel in Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent). The production also featured resources and conversations, with keynote by Burton and Bisno, and speakers including mental health professionals (Stanford’s Dr. Rona Hu, Princeton’s Dr. Calvin Chin, Georgia Tech’s Dr. Munmun De Choudhury), psychology professor and author Jean Twenge, Letters to Strangers founder Diana Chao, and actress and Twitch streamer Sarah Daniels. Among widespread media coverage, Burton was interviewed by Frank DiLella, 11-time Emmy-winning host of NYC’s celebrated “On Stage” theater show, as well as by Christopher Zara for Fast Company. The Manic Monologues production was widely lauded as a groundbreaking triumph in virtual theatre, securing a nomination for America’s oldest theatrical honors, The Drama League Awards, which marked the first time in the 87-year history of the Awards that any production outside Broadway and Off-Broadway was recognized. The production also earned a nomination for the Casting Society of America’s 2022 Artios Awards, alongside titles including Fargo, Ted Lasso, Encanto, and film adaptations In the Heights and Spielberg-directed West Side Story. The production won the 2021–2022 National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Excellence Awards for transformative programming across higher education, and has since been used for university programming ranging from Princeton University’s first-year orientation program to University of South Florida St. Petersburg’s Active Minds programs.
Additional virtual productions quickly followed the McCarter debut. In April 2021, the Center for Performing Arts at Maryland’s Prince George’s Community College debuted a virtual performance of the play. In June 2021, Arizona’s Virtual Theater Lab debuted the first live Zoom-based performance of the play, earning multiple nominations for the 2021 BroadwayWorld Phoenix Awards, including the award for “Best Streaming Play.” In October 2021, Michigan’s Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University produced the first “hybrid” in-person plus virtual production of the play, with the show’s success leading KCAD to organize a second hybrid production in March 2023 In February 2022, Zucker School of Medicine partnered with New York’s largest healthcare provider, Northwell Health, to produce a livestreamed performance with a cast composed of medical students, physicians, and professors.
Return to the stage (2022–present) The Manic Monologues returned to in-person audiences via multiple May 2022 performances honoring Mental Health Awareness Month. Performances—and major regional and international premieres—continue through 2024 and 2025.
Notably, May 2022 saw the play’s Off West End premiere, with The Manic Monologues opening at London’s Offie Award-winning Golden Goose Theatre for a May and June run.
In the U.S., on-stage May 2022 performances included the first high school production of the play (by students from Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut) and a week-long professional run at New Tampa Players’ Uptown Stage, in partnership with the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay and with support from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and Hillsborough County Government. In December 2022, the play was produced by Hawaiʻi Pacific University at downtown Honolulu’s Aloha Tower Marketplace.