when the mind’s free

An original dance-theatre piece about a lesbian family navigating early-onset Alzheimer's, in conversation with Shakespeare’s King Lear

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with a tax-deductible donation

When The Mind's Free is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of When The Mind's Free must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

stay tuned for announcements about the release of our film version of when the mind’s free

The history of When The Mind’s Free

2024 (World premiere, tour, filming)

The world premiere took place at The Shea Theater Arts Center in Western Massachusetts, July 26-August 4, 2024.

As part of the premiere, WTMF toured privately to Lathrop Retirement Community in Easthampton and Day Brook Village Senior Living in Holyoke. The Northampton Senior Center brought in WTMF for a public performance, and offered a Respite Room available for older adults with cognitive challenges or dementia to allow caregivers the opportunity to attend the play. The Respite Room was staffed by professionals from Cooley Dickinson’s Pioneer Valley Memory Care Initiative.

The production then toured to Cleveland State University in Ohio, Sept. 11-15, for performances open to the CSU community and the public on the 13th & 14th, and in order to shoot a film version of the play.

Photos of filming by Julian Hackel, 2024

“There is a desperate need to increase the representation of those living with Alzheimer's and caregivers in media and pieces like this; this disease continues to impact more families and we need art pieces to help the broader public understand this disease.”

-Meghan Lemay, Alzheimer's Association, Regional Manager, supporting consultant

2018-2023 (Our journey of co-creation!)

After holding an informal reading of King Lear in an apartment in NYC among theatre friends in 2018, imagining what relevance and potential that piece might have in the present moment, Toby Vera Bercovici began to gather people and resources for a long-term devising and creating process.

There was a developmental residency in the summer of 2019 at the Dragon’s Egg Studio in CT followed by a second residency and sharing of work-in-progress that December at the Shea Theater.

Then came the big interruption of Covid-19.

2020-2021 involved some limited workshopping, and Toby continued to develop the script.

In the fall of 2022 RLT hosted another developmental residency at our regular rehearsal studio inside the North Star building.

2023 saw an active rehearsal process as we brought the piece together for staged readings and community and fundraising events in June (again at the Shea Theater).

Why this project matters

What happens to a family when its leader loses her capacity for reason? This is a core theme from Shakespeare’s King Lear, and it’s a theme for millions of U.S. families who are already dealing with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Millions more will grapple with memory loss in the coming years. The CDC predicts that dementia cases will soon triple, as the baby boomer generation marches into old age. Many people will be confronted with the question:  Who do you become when you lose your memories?

When The Mind's Free is a dance-theatre piece that lifts language, ideas, and story from Shakespeare’s King Lear and places them in a contemporary context, that of a lesbian couple’s family dealing with the early-onset Alzheimer’s of their matriarch and the addiction of their youngest daughter. The piece has been developed over a multi-year period of improvisation and in conversation with Shakespeare’s King Lear, as well as in consultation with memory care organizations, caretakers, families, and individuals dealing with memory loss.

When the Mind’s Free is one of the first pieces of theatre (to our knowledge) to feature an LGBTQ+ family dealing with the impacts of Alzheimer’s, as it follows the story of married couple Colleen and Sharon (inspired by Lear and Fool, respectively) and their three daughters, Gwen (Goneril), Rowan (Regan), and Delia (Cordelia). As Colleen’s former self begins to vanish, erased by Alzheimer’s, each family member struggles with letting go of the past and finding peace in the present.

A core component of this project is direct community engagement

Each performance of the piece is accompanied by a facilitated space for discussion. We hope to give audience members time to reflect on their experiences of caregiving and being cared for, to share stories and resonances, and to connect with resources and with one another. From our own experiences, we know how lonely caregiving can be, and we hope to provide space to foster community connectedness.

When The Mind’s Free Staged Reading Events in June 2023 were supported in part by the generous support of a Mass Cultural Council Festivals & Projects Grant.

When The Mind’s Free 2024 was supported in part by grants from the Amherst, Greenfield, Hadley, Montague, and South Hadley Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

Our 2024 world premiere was also supported by a generous grant from the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation, and by sponsorship from Wohl Family Dentistry and The Fields Center.

The Shea Theater also thanks their sponsors for the 2024 world premiere: North East Solar, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, the Mass Cultural Council, and the MCC-supported Local Cultural Councils of Conway, Greenfield, Montague, and Shelburne.

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