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National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month takes place every September, but it’s important to be proactive and keep the conversation about mental wellness going strong throughout the year. But if you know someone struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, approaching them about it can feel daunting.

With that in mind, Nature’s Grace and Wellness has compiled some Do’s and Don’ts to consider when sparking a conversation with someone about their mental health.

Do let them know that you’re there to listen without judgment. You’re initiating this conversation because you care about them and you’re concerned about their well-being and safety. 

Don’t be afraid to be direct and ask hard questions, such as: Are you planning on harming or killing yourself or others? Do you have access to weapons in your home or elsewhere?

Do ask the person what is causing their immediate distress. Asking “what” questions, as opposed to “why” questions allows them to pinpoint the factors contributing to their situation without feeling pressured to justify their feelings.

Do be an active listener. Active listening techniques, such as asking open-ended questions, and using words of affirmation (“I see”) and non-verbal cues (nodding or leaning forward) can help build trust and improve communication.

Don’t try to diagnose or suggest treatment options.

Don’t center yourself. Many people tend to show empathy by sharing similar experiences or interjecting, but this can inadvertently take the focus away from the person in need of support. 

Do remind the person that they are not alone. 

Do guide the person to reputable resources and doctors, or if necessary, a hospital emergency room.

Don’t leave the person alone if there is immediate danger or the situation feels “off. Trust your intuition.

Do call 911 to request an ambulance and a Crisis Trained Officer in the event of a non-violent mental-health crisis,

Do call 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) as needed for 24/7 support.

Don’t be afraid to discuss your mental health. Opening up to a doctor, therapist, or a trusted friend or loved one is an act of bravery that can help us become stronger and healthier. 

Do continue to be proactive and Spark the Conversation about sucide prevention.

If you or a loved one are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, please dial 988, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or text TALK to 741741. If 911 is needed, ask specifically for an ambulance and for a Crisis Intervention Trained (CIT) police officer. To learn more about Nature’s Grace and Wellness, visit naturesgraceandwellness.com.

Be sure to follow @naturesgraceil on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Visit https://chicagoreader.com/special/spark-the-conversation/ to read other stories in our series.

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Their premise is not half bad: a “still relatively new” (as they describe themselves) theater company uses a fictional 125th-anniversary “jubilee” to bring together a collection of short sketches, some drawn from previous shows, some original to this one. Unfortunately, most of the comedy sketches, created by Sid Feldman and directed by Wm Bullion, are not particularly funny. And the performances are so rough and broadly performed that the little comedy in the material gets lost in the noise. 

The IneptidemicThrough 11/19: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM, Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark, conspirewithus.org, $25 ($15 students/seniors)

The noise, though, is the point. You see, the Conspirators set as their mission to perform in the loud, broad, way, way over the top “neo-commedia” style concocted 30 years ago by, among others, the folks at the late, lamented (by some) New Crime Productions. As part of the style, the actors wear garish, aggressively nonnaturalist gray-and-white makeup reminiscent of pre-WWII German cabaret theater, and all of their movements are accompanied, Kabuki-style, by a live percussionist.

This unusual, highly artificial aesthetic only works with material written specifically for this restricted style—the New Criminals tried it with a stage adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and sank like a stone—and demands a lot more from actors than this particular show’s cast can deliver. A couple of sketches really shine here—in particular a vicious little satire slashing at former President Trump just soars. But most of the time, the material—and the audience—is not well served by the show’s performance style.

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Drawing from a well that’s 500 years old and who knows how deep takes nerve. Yet that’s what Laughing Stock attempts with this contemporary take on commedia dell’arte. You could say that theater, and, by extension, TV and movies, have never really escaped the archetypes and tropes set in Italy so long ago, but to put on the old masks and employ the exaggerated gestures is a lot more than a nod to the past. So what does this company bring to the well-worn scenario of family, friends, and servants plotting a patriarch’s demise to make off with his riches? Well, there’s that ponderous subtitle and a lot of attendant dialogue about who should and should not inherit or prosper after a wealthy person’s passing. 

Over My Dead Body; Or, How to Distribute Generational WealthThrough 12/4: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture, 2936 N. Southport, athenaeumcenter.org, pay what you can ($25 suggested donation)

I have no doubt of the company’s earnestness. They devised their play to comment on a real-life societal problem in 2022. But their words bog down a production which is at its best in wordless moments. Director Antonio Fava has brought not only decades of experience from the old country but also his beautiful handmade leather masks. It’s remarkable how evocative a figure crossing a mostly bare stage with one of these elemental expressions can be. That medieval magic still works when it’s not interrupted by blather and explanation. Those fixed grimaces, squints, and caterwauls convey more than a mountain of words. I wish Laughing Stock trusted the masks to do more of the work they were designed to do.

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Their premise is not half bad: a “still relatively new” (as they describe themselves) theater company uses a fictional 125th-anniversary “jubilee” to bring together a collection of short sketches, some drawn from previous shows, some original to this one. Unfortunately, most of the comedy sketches, created by Sid Feldman and directed by Wm Bullion, are not particularly funny. And the performances are so rough and broadly performed that the little comedy in the material gets lost in the noise. 

The IneptidemicThrough 11/19: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM, Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark, conspirewithus.org, $25 ($15 students/seniors)

The noise, though, is the point. You see, the Conspirators set as their mission to perform in the loud, broad, way, way over the top “neo-commedia” style concocted 30 years ago by, among others, the folks at the late, lamented (by some) New Crime Productions. As part of the style, the actors wear garish, aggressively nonnaturalist gray-and-white makeup reminiscent of pre-WWII German cabaret theater, and all of their movements are accompanied, Kabuki-style, by a live percussionist.

This unusual, highly artificial aesthetic only works with material written specifically for this restricted style—the New Criminals tried it with a stage adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and sank like a stone—and demands a lot more from actors than this particular show’s cast can deliver. A couple of sketches really shine here—in particular a vicious little satire slashing at former President Trump just soars. But most of the time, the material—and the audience—is not well served by the show’s performance style.

Read More

Drawing from a well that’s 500 years old and who knows how deep takes nerve. Yet that’s what Laughing Stock attempts with this contemporary take on commedia dell’arte. You could say that theater, and, by extension, TV and movies, have never really escaped the archetypes and tropes set in Italy so long ago, but to put on the old masks and employ the exaggerated gestures is a lot more than a nod to the past. So what does this company bring to the well-worn scenario of family, friends, and servants plotting a patriarch’s demise to make off with his riches? Well, there’s that ponderous subtitle and a lot of attendant dialogue about who should and should not inherit or prosper after a wealthy person’s passing. 

Over My Dead Body; Or, How to Distribute Generational WealthThrough 12/4: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture, 2936 N. Southport, athenaeumcenter.org, pay what you can ($25 suggested donation)

I have no doubt of the company’s earnestness. They devised their play to comment on a real-life societal problem in 2022. But their words bog down a production which is at its best in wordless moments. Director Antonio Fava has brought not only decades of experience from the old country but also his beautiful handmade leather masks. It’s remarkable how evocative a figure crossing a mostly bare stage with one of these elemental expressions can be. That medieval magic still works when it’s not interrupted by blather and explanation. Those fixed grimaces, squints, and caterwauls convey more than a mountain of words. I wish Laughing Stock trusted the masks to do more of the work they were designed to do.

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René Magritte’s 1929 painting La Trahison des images is best known for the text it contains: painted in a curlicue script beneath the curved image of a pipe are the words, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” The paradox brings us not to the depth of the pipe but the surface, gleaming with a plastic finish, nothing but paint. (Of course, the words are also only paint; our cultural indoctrination makes us misread them as meaningful.)

This Is Not a PipeThrough 11/19: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 1650 W. Foster, danztheatre.org, $13-$20 (children under 15 free)

The simplicity of this “icon of modern art” has made it an easy joke to repeat. And repetition is at the core of Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble’s 2006 This Is Not a Pipe, directed and devised by Ellyzabeth Adler with the assistance of Hannah Blau. Black suits, blue skies, bowler hats, and apples easily transport viewers to the surrealist world Magritte created. “Molly!” choirs the ensemble like a Meisner repetition exercise, until it vanishes. A duet by Mia Hilt and Mary Iris Loncto questions whether identity is the reason the same steps look different on different dancers. Sigmund Freud (Jenise Y. Sheppard) appears, accusing women of penis envy, before being revealed (by removal of beard and suit) as a woman. “I am enough!” and other self-affirmations become the new chorus before the backdrop falls away, revealing a blood-red rose, from which a woman (Wannapa P-Eubanks), shrouded in a tight red veil and scarlet wedding gown, emerges. However, in a work that claims to resist a one-to-one interpretation of symbols, This Is Not a Pipe can’t resist a commitment to the surface.

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Sarah Sapperstein’s Maggie the Cat commands your attention with her act one monologues in MadKap Productions’s mounting of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Skokie Theatre, directed by Steve Scott. Sapperstein’s costars take her energy and roll with it for the entirety of this show, in which a southern family unravels (and winds back up again) the lies they’ve told themselves and each other. 

Kent Joseph and Caleb Gibson as Big Daddy and Brick, respectively, take the narrative reins in subsequent acts, as Big Daddy tries to get to the bottom of Brick’s alcoholism and the nature of Brick’s relationship with his late buddy Skipper, a relationship that Brick of course hasn’t figured out too well either.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Through 11/20: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM; also Wed 11/16 1:30 PM, Skokie Theatre, 7924 Lincoln, Skokie, 847-677-7761, skokietheatre.org, $38 ($34 students/seniors)

Joseph exudes Big Daddy’s menace, disgust, and cruelty when he’s both exasperated with his family’s phony birthday and reminding everyone of his control over the family purse strings. But his walls start to crack as he needles Brick more and pokes at truths about both his son and himself. With his character hobbling on one leg throughout the show, Gibson aptly shows us Brick’s sorrow and desire for hiding, seeking solace only in liquor as the long evening unfolds. Add in the delusional Big Mama (Ann James, also excellent) and the schemes of Brick’s brother Gooper (Reid Harrison O’Connell) and sister-in-law Mae (Emilie Yount), and you have all the makings for a sultry, captivating southern evening that will take your mind off the November chill.

Read More

René Magritte’s 1929 painting La Trahison des images is best known for the text it contains: painted in a curlicue script beneath the curved image of a pipe are the words, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” The paradox brings us not to the depth of the pipe but the surface, gleaming with a plastic finish, nothing but paint. (Of course, the words are also only paint; our cultural indoctrination makes us misread them as meaningful.)

This Is Not a PipeThrough 11/19: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 1650 W. Foster, danztheatre.org, $13-$20 (children under 15 free)

The simplicity of this “icon of modern art” has made it an easy joke to repeat. And repetition is at the core of Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble’s 2006 This Is Not a Pipe, directed and devised by Ellyzabeth Adler with the assistance of Hannah Blau. Black suits, blue skies, bowler hats, and apples easily transport viewers to the surrealist world Magritte created. “Molly!” choirs the ensemble like a Meisner repetition exercise, until it vanishes. A duet by Mia Hilt and Mary Iris Loncto questions whether identity is the reason the same steps look different on different dancers. Sigmund Freud (Jenise Y. Sheppard) appears, accusing women of penis envy, before being revealed (by removal of beard and suit) as a woman. “I am enough!” and other self-affirmations become the new chorus before the backdrop falls away, revealing a blood-red rose, from which a woman (Wannapa P-Eubanks), shrouded in a tight red veil and scarlet wedding gown, emerges. However, in a work that claims to resist a one-to-one interpretation of symbols, This Is Not a Pipe can’t resist a commitment to the surface.

Read More

Sarah Sapperstein’s Maggie the Cat commands your attention with her act one monologues in MadKap Productions’s mounting of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Skokie Theatre, directed by Steve Scott. Sapperstein’s costars take her energy and roll with it for the entirety of this show, in which a southern family unravels (and winds back up again) the lies they’ve told themselves and each other. 

Kent Joseph and Caleb Gibson as Big Daddy and Brick, respectively, take the narrative reins in subsequent acts, as Big Daddy tries to get to the bottom of Brick’s alcoholism and the nature of Brick’s relationship with his late buddy Skipper, a relationship that Brick of course hasn’t figured out too well either.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Through 11/20: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM; also Wed 11/16 1:30 PM, Skokie Theatre, 7924 Lincoln, Skokie, 847-677-7761, skokietheatre.org, $38 ($34 students/seniors)

Joseph exudes Big Daddy’s menace, disgust, and cruelty when he’s both exasperated with his family’s phony birthday and reminding everyone of his control over the family purse strings. But his walls start to crack as he needles Brick more and pokes at truths about both his son and himself. With his character hobbling on one leg throughout the show, Gibson aptly shows us Brick’s sorrow and desire for hiding, seeking solace only in liquor as the long evening unfolds. Add in the delusional Big Mama (Ann James, also excellent) and the schemes of Brick’s brother Gooper (Reid Harrison O’Connell) and sister-in-law Mae (Emilie Yount), and you have all the makings for a sultry, captivating southern evening that will take your mind off the November chill.

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Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky riffs on the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty, and interviews politicians, activists, journalists and other political know-it-alls. Presented by the Chicago Reader, the show is available by 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays at chicagoreader.com/joravsky—or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss Oh, What a Week!–the Friday feature in which Ben & producer Dennis (aka, Dr. D.) review the week’s top stories. Also, bonus interviews drop on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays. 

Chicago Reader podcasts are recorded on Shure microphones. Learn more at Shure.com.

Chicago Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky discusses the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty on The Ben Joravsky Show.

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