Nora Schell (Spamilton, Company at Barrington Stage Company) is a rare breed, a person on the public eye who is wholly open about her life, triumphs and struggles. On social media, Schell has been honest about dealing with mental illness, helping to take one more brick out of the wall of stigma.
Schell is poised to make her Broadway debut in Jagged Little Pill on December 5th of this year. The musical, which had it’s world premiere at the American Repertory Theater last summer, features the music of Alanis Morissette integrated into an original story about the Healy’s and the real problems that lurk beneath the surface of the “perfect” family. I recently spoke with Schell about managing her mental health, the power of honesty, performing in Jagged Little Pill, and the importance of telling the whole truth.
You have been vocal on your social media about having Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. Why is it important for you to be open about dealing with mental illness?
When I first did the first lab for Jagged [Little Pill], I was going through a bipolar episode. I had to weigh the cost and benefit of saying something in case I spiral. I decided to talk to our team about it and they were very accepting. It’s a little scary to try to tell people that in your work environment because they can associate that with an inability to be stable. I think it’s very important to talk about it if you’re somebody who’s had a level of success. Just because you’re dealing with this does not mean that you’re unable to achieve certain things that are attributed to people who don’t have these issues.
What is the role of mental health stigma in the theater as a work environment?
I feel like in musical theater there’s a very high expectation of the portraying yourself as “okay”. I’ve never been with a team that’s so hands-on and that’s also so focused on a message that’s political, social, and dealing with mental health issues. But there are so many people within our field who don’t really want to go to that level.
There are people like yourself in musical theater who have been vocal about their mental health issues, including Patti Murin and Eva Noblezada. Do you think that some of that stigma is getting dismantled?
I think it’s good that the more we talk about it casually and not as something that is so terrible. It’s just a chemical imbalance.
How do you take care of yourself so that you are balancing work and dealing with chronic mental health conditions?
I go to therapy. I go back and forth between doing therapy groups and doing individual therapy. I’m also very close with my family, I talk to my parents a lot.
What do you wish people understood about having a chronic mental illness?
I wish they understood that even though you are seeing a warped version of reality at times, that that is what your brain is telling you is reality. You can learn how to recognize when that’s happening. It’s not making an excuse when you say that you can learn different tactics and you can use different tools to be able to recognize that, but it’s not something that you can really control.
One of the roles you play in the show is the doctor. As someone who is also a patient in real life, what is that like for you to be on the other side of that dynamic?
I got to tell my therapist, “Hey, I’m playing a therapist in show, isn’t that funny?” I was mimicking the certain things that I see that my therapist doing, which was bizarre. It almost felt wrong. I was like, “Oh my God, I’m like the craziest person in our show. Why am I playing the therapist?”
Can you talk about the run of Jagged Little Pill at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge?
It was a process where we were in rehearsal until the end because we kept having people that were getting injured. It was a great experience for me because this is the first time that I’ve done anything where it’s just like creating something. We really had to put aside our personal feelings and emotions to be able to continue creating a product that was impactful.
What kind of responses were you getting from audience members?
We heard from people about the sexual assault aspect. We heard from people about growing up as a person of color in all white area. We heard from people who, identity-wise, they’re not represented in media or on stage; when they got to see certain people on stage in was very empowering.
Why do you think that the story of Jagged Little Pill is an important story to tell right now?
I think that a lot of people don’t understand the term “intersectionality”. People kept saying, there’s a lot going on in the show. But these things can’t be truncated. They’re all interacting. It’s all like relative. You can’t use it as an additive approach where you put it on top of each other. All of these things are happening at the same time and they are affected by each other. We have to understand that it is overwhelming.
I think if we don’t deal with it in a complicated way, we’re not really understanding. I also don’t think the show is giving easy answers. I think it’s living in the dialectic and in the unknowing. I feel like it’s more asking questions than giving definitive answers.
If you or someone you know is struggling with a mental illness, you can find out more information and how to get treatment at https://nami.org/
You can follow Nora on social media @noritachiquita and can find out more about her work https://www.noraschell.com/
You can find out more about Jagged Little Pill and can purchase tickets at https://jaggedlittlepill.com/
Best,
Dr. Drama