Theatre Roanoke College hosting reading with important mental health message

In support of National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, Theatre Roanoke College is hosting a free reading of the powerful, award-winning play “Anatomy of a Suicide” this weekend.

The event is an opportunity for students to better understand an important topic and learn about resources available on campus. Co-sponsors of the reading include Student Health & Counseling Services, RC’s Psychology Department and the annual Out of the Darkness Walk for Suicide Prevention.

Support materials will be available, and an opening/closing practice for mental health will be offered at the event.

“Anatomy of a Suicide” (Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner, 2018) focuses on how three women in one family — grandmother Carol; mother Anna; and daughter Bonnie — process generational trauma and wrestle with questions of personal versus family legacies.

The play takes its audience through a “rough ride of devastation and truths of suicide,” wrote Sabrina Rogers ’27, staff reporter for The Brackety-Ack, in the student newspaper’s Sept. 22 edition.

Rogers spoke with Adjunct Lecturer Danielle Barre, who’s directing the reading, to learn more about the event. What follows is an edited excerpt of their conversation:

What impact are you looking to have on the audience?

I hope it will encourage discussion. The stigma around mental health is pervasive and life-threatening. When we put on challenging work like this, we hope it helps bring awareness and open up dialogue.

How do you feel this play will challenge you as a director?

This play is challenging. Full stop. It’s going to challenge me, the actors, and the audience. It’s a brilliant, beautiful, powerful play that takes an unflinching look at mental health and generational trauma. It pulls no punches.

What parts of a traditional production are sacrificed when doing a staged reading?

I think it’s less about a sacrifice and more about different expectations. A staged reading will never be a fully embodied performance. There won’t be a set or costumes, and there will be minimal movement from the actors. But that doesn’t mean a staged reading can’t be a powerful theatrical experience. When you strip away everything else, you’re still left with a really great story. Our job is to give voice to that story as best we can.