Balancing Act The Musical Script
She rebuilt her life-in front of the audience.
Balancing Act: The Musical is the true, funny, and unflinching story of how severe bipolar disorder disrupted Wambui Bahati's Broadway career, cost her the life she had known, and nearly took her life-and how she found her way back.
Through vivid scenes, humor, and original songs, Wambui takes the audience inside the experience of mania, depression, hospitalization, financial struggle, family relationships, and the difficult work of rediscovering her identity, dignity, and joy.
Balancing Act was first performed in 1998 at the Greensboro Cultural Center in Greensboro, North Carolina. After Beth Melcher, then president of NAMI North Carolina, saw a video of the performance, she arranged for the show to tour ten North Carolina cities to help raise awareness about mental illness.
After Robert Stecko completed the musical arrangements, the show was presented in a New York showcase at the John Houseman Theatre. Since then, Wambui has performed Balancing Act at conferences, conventions, colleges, churches, community events, New York City's Don't Tell Mama, and the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.
This published script preserves the words, scenes, and songs of a theatrical work that has moved audiences for more than twenty-five years.
Wambui's story is her story. It is not medical advice, and she never suggests that one person's journey should become someone else's treatment plan. What she offers is an honest look from inside the experience-and genuine hope that a diagnosis does not have to erase a person's gifts, dignity, dreams, or future.
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