âGood Morning West High!!â
The voice over the speakers went on with the daily announcementsâbasketball games, the school play, club meetingsâas teenagers shuffled into the auditorium at West High. Kids here come in all colors, black, brown and Utah blonde, but they all dress the same in dark hoodies, tees, sweats and trainers, lugging big backpacks. Anyone whoâs been in an American high school recognizes the scene. Itâs the unseen thatâs frightening.
Before graduation, several of these kids may have tried to kill themselves. Teen suicide rates in Utah are the highest in the nation. Despite a slight dip in 2018, rates are rising again.
And thatâs why these kids are here now.
âYour mother did something stupid,â the father tells the seven-year-old child as they drive to the hospital after the first overdose, inspiring her/him (the role can be played by any gender) to start a list of brilliant things to live for. His list of brilliant things is the theme of the playâby the end, it numbers one million and friends, family and even strangers have contributed.
â#1. Ice Cream!â
The play is interactive. Before the performance the audience receives numbered cards; when the actor calls out the number, the audience member reads the card aloud.
â#2. Water fightâ
â#3. Staying up past bedtime and being allowed to watch TVâ
And as the play progresses, the list grows and the numbers get higher. The audience has to pay attention and listen for their number.
â#998. Bicycling downhillâ
Teens are one of the hardest demographics to communicate withârebellious, resistant, skeptical and naively cynical. Trying to reach them with a meaningful message is a tough sell. West High history teacher Jacob Taber watched as his students gradually warmed to the actor. âOf course, they start out rambunctious. But not long into the play they were self-governing their behavior, shushing each other,â he says. At times, some are called on to play the parts of a vet, the dad, a sympathetic teacher, ad-libbing their responses. The teen audience was engaged in spite of themselves.
There have been lots of efforts and organizations working to lower the rate of teen suicide in Utah. Hope Squad, for example, was founded by Dr. Gregory A. Hudnall, a former high school principal and associate superintendent with the Provo City School District. He has been involved with suicide prevention for the past twenty years and has personally been involved with over twenty-five suicides as a first responder or consultant. Hope Squad is a school-based peer-to-peer approach to teen suicide prevention. A three-year program trains groups of students how to recognize warning signs, talk about suicide and help a peer in danger. There are Hope Squads in 31 Utah school districts. Caring Connection, Samaritans, suicide hotlinesâthere are so many organizations fighting the rise of teen suicide, all the time. As Katherine Supiano, associate professor in the University of Utahâs School of Nursing, and director of Caring Connections, says, âThese kids probably see three or four suicide lectures a year. Iâm sure they thought, great, one more suicide prevention thing. But the play comes at you sideways and not in your face. The message sneaks in. Itâs about them, not at them.â
The Utah Shakespeare Festival, uniquely, is using art to convey the message. Every Brilliant Thing was endorsed by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention; funding was obtained from the State of Utah, The Utah Department of Heritage and Arts, Utah Division of Arts and Museums, Southern Utah University- Rural Health Scholars and the Richard K. and Shirley S. Hemingway Foundation. The play has been on a multiple run, presenting shows at high schools across Utah. This is the third production of the day at West.
Like the Hope Squads, the production staff of Every Brilliant Thing are trained in QPRâquestion, persuade and referâ necessary because of the studentsâ response to the play. âSome of them always come up and talk,â says actor Cordell Cole. âThe key to the performance is becoming equal with the studentsâbeing one of them. You have to be on their side the whole time or it doesnât work.â
Some studentsâ confidences are shocking:
âBoth my mother and my father killed themselves.â
âMy best friend tried to kill herself.â
âI need help.â
In at least one instance, the conversation led to the troubled teenâs connection with a trained counselor.
Every Brilliant Thing explores not just depression and suicide, but the effect of suicide on those left behindâthe guilt, the grief and the never ending questionsâ because the protagonistâs mother is eventually successful. Although, as he points out, âSuicide is never a success.â
During the course of the play, as the seven-year-old becomes an adult, marries and divorces, the monologue talks about how to deal with the survivor feelings and how to avoid them leading to a similar ending. âSuicide is contagious,â says the playâs character. âEvery time suicide is front-page news, every time a celebrity or a character on prime time television takes their own life there is a spike in the number of suicides.â
He explains the Samaritans, a suicide prevention organization, and reads their list of suggestions for how journalists write about suicide. (Each production of the play is altered to refer to its location.)
Utah journalists have written a lot about suicide in the last few years. There have been big increases in every categoryâage, gender, race and ethnicity, but most articles have been about the rising rates of teen suicide. And mostly, the articles try to examine and answer the question âwhy.â
Drug-use, homophobia, bullying, careless parenting, gangs, religious oppression, lack of mental resources and easy access to guns have all been explored as causes.
Every Brilliant Thing doesnât really ask the question why. Instead, it focuses on why not.
âThe play is so profoundly affecting and effective: itâs not in your face, it doesnât go after your brain, it goes after your heart,â says Supiano. âArt can do that, science cannot. The arts, just because theyâre so experiential, can connect to a different place, obliquely not face-on. Thatâs why artâpainting, theater, danceâis so much closer to truth.â
The main characterâs list of brilliant things to live has reached a million items by the end of the play.
#999999. âCompleting a task.â
And the protagonist does have advice for anyone contemplating suicide. âItâs simple,â he explains to the audience. âDonât do it. Things get better. They might not always get brilliant. But they get better.â