close

Theatrical production opens conversation about mental illness

By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read
article image -

Through her work as a mental health counselor and beyond, Amanda Filippelli has found an effective way to help with the healing process.

“I’ve spent all this time telling people, ‘Just be brave. Just tell your story. Just be honest,'” she said. “But I’d never done that myself.”

In December, the Baldwin Borough resident found herself mired in a recurrence of her lifelong battles with anxiety and depression.

“I hadn’t struggled that deeply for many years, and so immediately, I knew that I kind of needed to take a dose of my own medicine,” she admitted. “Out of that, the book was born.”

Blue Rooms

“Blue Rooms” is a collection of poems that Filippelli subsequently composed as a therapeutic measure, which she describes as a work that “addresses mental illness and how to come out on the other side empowered.”

“When the book was done, I thought to myself, it just feels weird to publish this book and move on from it because it was such a seminal point in my life,” she said. “And I thought, I can use this opportunity to serve as an example, to show that storytelling really does help us heal.”

Thus comes the theatrical version of “Blue Rooms,” which premieres at 7 p.m. June 22 and 23 at Andrew Carnegie Free Library in Carnegie.

“We’ve really pulled together a team of people who have lent me their creativity, their talents, their time, their patience,” Filippelli said, “and we’ve built this unique stage production that’s, frankly, so far beyond anything I could have envisioned.”

Kiera Lynn Haaland, a playwright who happens to be Filippelli’s best friend, acts in the play and helped adapt the printed word to live performance. Theresa Baughman, owner and designer of accessory brand Fizzpop, is in charge of set design and production, and Vaughn-Shane Camarda is audio engineer and sound designer, composing original music.

“All I did was say, ‘Here are my words,’ and he just took them and turned them into a score that is perfect,” Filippelli asserted. “It’s everything it needs to be.”

After working in the field of mental health care for a decade, she shifted her focus to writing and co-founding a publishing company, One Idea Press. She also has put one of her talents on display by designing and crafting the costumes for “Blue Rooms.”

“I’ve been making clothes since I was a teenager. When I was younger, it was really an important creative outlet for me,” she said, calling her latest experience “really special, because it’s enabled me to think about the poems and the meaning behind everything that’s happening in the play while I’m making the costumes and kind of imbuing all of that into the clothing.”

The three-act play features song, spoken word and interpretive movement in tracing the life of a woman from youth through adulthood.

“We’ve given a lot of creative license to the actors in terms of the movement, and the set design is very interactive,” she explained. “The idea is to create an experience where everybody feels a part of it.”

The performance addresses such issues as the lineage of mental illness in the main character’s family and how it affects her perspective, along with difficulties in navigating “the world of love and relationships, and how codependency and addiction can become a really significant problem in your life.”

“The third act, our leading lady is a full-fledged adult who has gone through the work it takes internally to come out the other side of things empowered,” Filippelli said. “And the idea is to show the audience that there is hope, that there is a way, that there is a community behind you.”

Theaters beyond the Pittsburgh area have expressed interest in the concept, so she hopes for good turnouts in Carnegie.

“This is a cause,” she said. “It’s an experience and it’s a wonderful piece of art, and you’re going to have a great time, but it’s also a movement. You’re helping us push this message forward into other cities.”

At its core, her message is:

“At some point in your life, you’ve struggled mentally in some way, and there’s no shame in that. We need to be able to have conversations. That’s how we develop who we are, how we persevere through those things or don’t.”

For more information, visit amandafilippelli.com.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $/week.

Subscribe Today