NAMI North Carolina ‘Balancing Act’

I created a logo, poster, tickets, programs, news releases and advertisements for a one-woman musical presented in 10 communities by NAMI North Carolina affiliates.

‘Balancing Act’

In Balancing Act, Wambui Bahati shares her powerful personal story of growing up in Greensboro and launching a theatrical career on Broadway, only to have her success cut short by mental illness. Through monologue and song, she portrays her struggle with bipolar mood disorder—an illness she did not at first realize she had and, once diagnosed, did not want to admit she had. At times hilariously funny and always relentlessly honest, Balancing Act presents an intelligent, informative portrayal of bipolar mood disorder and its effects on Bahati’s self-esteem, career, relationships and day-to-day coping. From her ordeal, she emerges with hope for her future as she comes to terms with her illness and with herself.

Presented in North Carolina by NAMI North Carolina

A One-Woman Musical Written & Performed by Wambui Bahati

1998-1999 Tour Dates

Greensboro
NAMI Guilford County
Little Theater, Bennett College
Sunday, October 10, 1998, 3 p.m.

Durham
NAMI Durham
Hillside High School
Saturday, January 16, 1999, 8 p.m.

Goldsboro
NAMI Wayne County
Wayne Community College
Tuesday, March 23, 1999, 7:30 p.m.

Raleigh
NAMI Wake County
North Carolina Museum of History
Sunday, April 25, 1999, 3 p.m.

Fayetteville
NAMI Cumberland County
Cape Fear Theater
Thursday, May 13, 1999, 8 p.m.

Winston-Salem
NAMI Forsyth
Anderson Center
Winston-Salem State University
Friday, May 21, 1999, 8 p.m.

Asheville
NAMI Western Carolina
YMI Cultural Center
Saturday, May 22, 1999, 8 p.m.

Burlington
NAMI Alamance County
Paramount Theater
Monday, May 24, 1999, 7 p.m.

Wilson
NAMI Wilson
Playhouse Theater
Tuesday, May 25, 1999, 8 p.m.

‘Balancing Act’ News Release

‘Balancing Act’ Bound for Off-Broadway

Released October 2, 1998

The first time John-Ann Washington moved from her native Greensboro to New York City, fresh from high school graduation, it was to study acting at the New York University School of the Arts. When she landed a part in Godspell, her dreams of a theatrical career seemed destined to come true.

But before long, Washington’s emerging mental illness forced her to give up her dreams and move back to Greensboro where, as her condition worsened, the disease threatened to destroy her life.

It is the story of her mental illness that will soon take Washington, 48, back to New York to star in an off-Broadway production of Balancing Act, the one-woman musical she wrote about her harrowing struggle with bipolar mood disorder.

Washington, who renamed herself Wambui Bahati—Swahili words meaning “singer of songs” and “one who has good fortune”—will present Balancing Act at communities throughout North Carolina for NAMI North Carolina, a 1,400-member grassroots organization for families coping with mental illness.

In its current form, the play is perhaps the most refined and revealing version yet of the work Bahati started several years ago when self-improvement author Anthony Robbins inspired her to, “pretend I was a playwright.”

Deeply depressed and suicidal, Bahati was holed up in her apartment, compulsively ordering merchandise she didn’t need and couldn’t afford from home shopping channels. “One night I ordered an Anthony Robbins tape from TV,” she said. “I told myself, ‘I’m going to try everything he says and when it doesn’t work, I’m outta here.'”

As she listened repeatedly to the tape, Bahati decided to take Robbins’ advice to “act like the person you want to be.” She joined the Greensboro Playwrights Forum and began work on a first draft of her play. “People came in to those meetings with real plays, and I had Balancing Act,” she recalled. Longer term, Bahati hoped to perform again.

As her determination and confidence grew, Bahati began looking for a mental health agency interested in producing her play. When she called NAMI North Carolina’s toll-free Helpline, the staff referred her to local contact Elaine Purpel, founding president of NAMI North Carolina and a leading member of NAMI Guilford County.

Purpel asked to read the play and Bahati gave her a copy, even though “it was in real bad form, and it wasn’t real nice.” With Bahati’s permission, Purpel let others from NAMI Guilford County read it, and the group decided to produce the play for Greensboro’s African American Arts Festival last January.

The production was so successful, NAMI Guilford County members asked Beth Melcher, executive director of NAMI North Carolina, to consider working with other affiliates to offer the play statewide.

Melcher saw in Balancing Act an opportunity to further NAMI North Carolina’s mission to educate people about severe and persistent mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, clinical depression and schizophrenia. “It’s powerful and funny and moving, and it tells the story of bipolar mood disorder without prettying it up,” Melcher said of the play. “Besides portraying the disorder so well, the story of Wambui’s courage and her ability to overcome her illness is a story anybody can relate to.”

NAMI North Carolina’s presentations of Balancing Act will reflect two weeks’ worth of polishing and refining the play for its off-Broadway debut. Bahati worked on revisions with New York theatrical producer Eric Krebs and his staff from mid- to late September. She presented the play to two New York audiences September 28 and 29 and, based on their enthusiastic response, Krebs decided to exercise his option to produce the play.

“Some of the people who saw it on the 28th liked it so much they came back to see it again the next night,” said Bahati. “It was very well-received, and Eric Krebs decided to go ahead with the production.”

For Bahati, the chance to return to the New York stage represents a significant personal victory over her illness. Still, she understands the victory is not necessarily a final one. “I’d love to be able to say I’m cured, but I know this is something I’m going to live with for the rest of my life,” she said. “I do know what signs to look for, and I know enough now to get help.”

Bahati also believes her play helps others cope with mental illness. “I’ve found I really do help a lot of people and make a difference in their lives because once they’ve seen the play, they’re able to talk about it,” she said.

After one performance, a woman from the audience approached Bahati and said she had been on the verge of leaving her husband until the play made her realize her husband was probably suffering from bipolar mood disorder. “She said, ‘I see now he’s not just mean. There’s something else going on there.'”

When she presented excerpts of Balancing Act and spoke to a high school audience, Bahati said the students asked more questions about mental illness than about acting and show business. After her presentation, one student described her own struggles with bipolar disorder to Bahati. “The play makes people feel it’s OK to talk about mental illness, and I think that’s a good thing,” she said.

“Mental illness is the only illness I know of where people think it’s your fault and believe you should be able to fix it,” she added. “Nobody would dare tell a cancer patient, ‘Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.’ But if they don’t see you bleeding, or they don’t see a broken bone, people don’t understand if you say you can’t get out of bed and go to work today. So you stop trying to tell them. You put up a façade-something my doctors have told me I do particularly well. But the people who never talk about it are the ones most likely to end up dead.”

With Balancing Act, Bahati has created her own way of talking about her illness in her own voice. In the process, she believes the play has helped with her healing. “A lot of the stress of mental illness comes from trying to hide it because there’s still that stigma,” she said. “But once you do open up and talk about it, you find there are other people in the same situation. It’s kind of freeing.”

Wambui Bahati Biography

A Greensboro native, Wambui Bahati has been a performer since her childhood days as John-Ann Washington. While a student at Dudley High School, she taught acting classes, conducted workshops and directed children’s performances for the Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department. She was a founding member and the first chairperson of the Greensboro Drama Commission of the Greensboro Youth Council. 

Her formal theatrical studies began at the New York University School of the Arts where she majored in acting. While attending NYU, Ms. Bahati worked behind the scenes in various positions ranging from follow-spot operator to box office treasurer for several off-Broadway productions. 

Ms. Bahati made her professional debut in Godspell at Fords Theater in Washington and performed in the Broadway productions of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. Her stock, touring and regional credits include The Magic Show, two national tours of The Wiz, Joseph Papp’s rock version of Two Gentlemen of Verona, Little Ham, Nunsense, Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope and a musical version of Gone With the Wind. She was a member of Twelfth Night Repertory Company, a San Francisco touring theater for young people, and the City Center Young People’s Theater in New York. Ms. Bahati was also general manager of the John Houseman Theatre Complex in New York. She did a rhythm and blues act in San Francisco as The African Violet. 

Recently, Ms. Bahati finished a videotaped documentary based on an early version of Balancing Act. Produced by NAMI North Carolina, the program is being used as an outreach tool to help break the stigma and encourage discussion of mental illness. 

Her most recent performance projects are I Am Domestic Violence and The Welfare Blues, a musical about welfare and human rights. 

In 1998, Ms. Bahati received a Woman of Achievement Award from the Greensboro Commission on the Status of Women and a Belle Ringer Image Award from Bennett College.

Most recently, she received the 1999 Lionel Aldridge Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. This national award recognizes an individual for service, courage and leadership on behalf of people with mental illness. 

Ms. Bahati is a member of the Greensboro Playwrights Forum and The Dramatist Guild. Write to Ms. Bahati at Post Office Box 79023, Greensboro, NC 27417-9023.