Lethan Candlish suffered a traumatic brain injury after a car accident in 1999- his senior year at Bloomsburg Area High School.
“Before the accident, I was going to be a stage actor. I was going to try my luck in New York City or Chicago,” Candlish said.
Candlish was in a coma for about a week after the accident. And when he woke up, he felt lost.
“After the accident, I didn’t feel comfortable in my own body on stage,” he said.
Then, he started to write.
This weekend, Candlish returns home to Bloomsburg with a performance of a one-man show about his injury and recovery.
He will perform his show ‘Who Am I, Again?’ this Saturday, Aug. 15, at 6:30 p.m,
at Alvina Krause Theatre in downtown Bloomsburg. The show will be presented by the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble and sponsored by Geisinger Health Network and Encompass Health. Experts from both will lead a post-show panel discussion.
“This story that I'm bringing to Bloomsburg on Saturday feels very much like bringing the piece home in a sense… I performed in China and in South Korea, and now we're bringing it back to Bloomsburg where the story began,” Candlish said.
‘Who Am I, Again?’
‘Who Am I, Again?’ started as Candlish’s graduate thesis project at East Tennessee State University in 2008.
Who Am I, Again?
Saturday, August 15 at 6:30 p.m.
Alvina Krause Theatre
226 Center Street
Bloomsburg PA 17815
Nearly a decade after his injury, his work on the show has helped him heal.
"I began to notice a real introspective recovery in myself, working with this story and coming to understand my story better, not through all the medical charts and all through the medical terms, but through the more interpersonal experience of understanding my story by talking with other people,” he said.
He said the show has grown since then. Workshopping the show helped him find humor in it - and in his own journey.
“It's not just a spiel that can become traumatic for an audience that has to listen too long, but it's really focused on the entertainment value of this piece and the way audiences can understand this material by seeing the full spectrum of emotions. You have the tragedy, but then you also have the humor because parts of recovery are funny, and you also have the excitement and the danger and the mystery,” he said.
He said sharing his story on stage underscores the importance of storytelling and connection.
“At almost every performance, there has been at least two or three people who have experienced brain injury. And afterwards, they all talk to me about how much they feel empowered to share their story, and they can experience it either as survivors themselves or as knowing a loved one who experienced brain injury. They see the importance of sharing that story as a way to understand the experience,” he said.
Mental health in performance
Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s upcoming season will also bring mental health to the stage and the classroom.
The Ensemble’s new season will open this fall with ‘Cry It Out,’ a production that follows three women through three different postpartum experiences.
“This play appeals to the support systems of mothers as much as it appeals to mothers. So we have these three women, three different moms that have three different economic situations and three very vastly different support systems,” said Aaron Write, the director of ‘Cry It Out.’
Abigail Leffler, a resident artist for the Ensemble, will perform in the production. She’s also a mother.
“It's really shown in this play in a way that is not the whole stereotype that a mom is supposed to consider motherhood the miracle that it is 100% of the time. There are ultimately struggles that we go through. We understand what we signed up for, and we understand what's at stake, and so it's worth it,” Leffler said.
Leffler will also direct a classroom production called ‘Neuro-Influencers' about the effects of social media on young people.
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“My 12-year-old wants a phone desperately, and we won't give him a smartphone, and it's a big point of contention. We're reaching out to the age groups that someday in the future, they’ll get to use this thing. We're trying to let them know what that actually does to their bodies, and hopefully can help them make good conscious choices for their own well-being as they move forward into their adolescence,” said White, who wrote ‘Neuro-Influencers.’
‘Neuro-Influencers’ starts its tour to classrooms around Pennsylvania in February, with a free preview of the show at the Bloomsburg Public Library on Saturday, Feb. 20, and a final free preview to close the tour Saturday, April 24 at the Renaissance Jamboree in Bloomsburg at Phillips Emporium.
Connecting people with theater
The Ensemble did not intend to focus so heavily on public health this season and next, but they are excited to highlight the topic.
“We have an entire season that deals with how people connect with each other, and where mental health either allows or disrupts that connection,” White said.
The Ensemble wants the shows to bring people together.
“All of these are very human stories,” White said. “The hope is that we're not stigmatizing any of these experiences.”
“Theater is a way to amplify and open up that sense of isolation into, ‘Oh, I'm experiencing this with a group of people I'm seeing a story that reflects my own,'’’ he continued.
And for Candlish, his art and performance helped him to grow and to better understand his post-traumatic brain injury life. He wants others to do the same.
“This is my big focus now: the importance of using storytelling after trauma as a way to understand the experience that happened to you as a survivor,” Candlish said.
