An Interview with Jennifer Marshall, founder of This Is My Brave

This Is My Brave – The Show is a live presentation of touching essays, original music, poetry and comedy performed by a dozen individuals living with – or loving someone with – a mental illness. Shows are held in cities and towns across the United States, as well as in Australia. Auditions are held in each city in advance of the show, creating a cast made up of members of the local community. They rehearse together with a local producer before presenting their stories live on stage in front of an audience. Since 2013, This Is My Brave (TIMB) has successfully produced 77 shows in seven years throughout the country.

What is involved in bringing a TIMB show to life?

Each TIMB show takes a lot of work and dedication. You need to build a well-rounded team that includes marketing, connection to the venue, ability to raise funds, picking a mental health beneficiary in the area that will receive proceeds from the show, etc. The production takes roughly six months. Beyond the administrative and technical set-up, the team surrounding each show helps lead the transformation and change that we so often see in our producers, speakers, and the audience.

As shows have continued to grow in popularity, demand has increased. Because TIMB is currently a small team of three, we were struggling with being able to keep up with spreading the TIMB experience while still maintaining enough bandwidth for everything else we still have to do as an organization day-to-day. That’s why we’ve developed a new production model to help bring more shows to more areas.

What are your future plans for TIMB?

The new production model includes an online training component that enables communities to get a TIMB show up and running. We take a production team through 10 hours of training to plan, prepare, and run a show in their area. TIMB provides assistance every step of the way to make sure things run smoothly.

TIMB brings a sense of community, not just as a speaker but also as an audience member or as part of the production team. The entire experience creates an amazing support system within your community with those who are navigating through their mental health. You can leave a TIMB show feeling valued, self-confident, a strong sense of purpose, a sense of community, and reducing the self-stigma and shame surrounding mental health.

Greenbrook TMS is a proud sponsor of TIMB. Learn more about TIMB here.