Good Art Requires Support. Please Consider Supporting Mine.

One of the biggest things that squashes creativity is capitalism. The fact that money makes the world go round is a reality far sadder than that earworm of a song from Cabaret.

For decades, I denied myself a career in acting because of the practical voice in my head that said: you need to get a job. I’m not upset about it. I’ve had a wonderfully successful career as a journalist, and I still work in that area. But I’ve also finally given myself room to grow as a performer and share stories with the world.

None of that would be possible without the support system behind me. My husband Sebastien, who didn’t bat an eye when I told him I wanted to quit my job and pursue acting full time. My best friend Liz, who showed me how to show up for myself. My sister Melissa, who has been my rock through all of the hard times. And the dozens of family members, friends, teachers, and coaches who are all in my corner. That is what keeps me going as I try to create funny, tragic, and tragically hilarious things on stage and on the page.

But these things require money. And I launched my first fundraising campaign to get this done.

Condemned To A Life is a dark comedy about a woman who learns to love herself and others while living through child abuse, a near-fatal car accident, addiction, and a brother serving life in prison. Puppets play every other character in the story, which helps to soften the harsher realities of life. Love and acceptance win in the end. This is not a French movie.

The show is personal, built from experience and things I was always too scared to discuss. It opens with a letter I wrote to the judge at my brother’s sentencing and wrestles with guilt, damage, love, and the ways in which we are all sentenced by moments in our lives. My brother was sentenced in a courtroom. The show asks what happens to the rest of us.

I have touched on these themes in my reporting and won a Bronze Digital Health Award for my writing about brain injury and resilience. I have been thinking about trauma and survival for a very long time, in multiple formats. This show is where it all comes together.

The script is done. My director is the talented Vishaal Desai, an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been recognized at festivals from London to India, and who brings a sensitive and magnificent vision to everything he works on. Puppet designer and puppeteer Noah Ginex is building wildly fantastic puppets, and my puppet coach Stoph Scheer continues to encourage me to make great art and shows me how to do it without embarrassing myself.

We are aiming for a Chicago premiere, and the show has already been accepted into the United Solo Festival in New York for both Fall 2026 and Spring 2027.

The full production budget is $18,000. I am raising $8,000 of that through Fractured Atlas, which means your donation is fully tax-deductible and goes directly to paying artists: the director, the puppeteer, the stage manager, and all of the other people who are helping to make this show. The rest I am putting in myself, because god dammit, I finally believe in myself.

I want this show to start conversations and chip away at the shame surrounding traumatic brain injury, mental illness, addiction, abuse, and what it means to love someone who is struggling. This isn’t only my story. It belongs to anyone who has ever had to keep living their life while someone they love disappears into something they can’t fix.

If you can donate — $25, $100, whatever feels right — I am genuinely grateful. There are perks at various levels, including reserved seats to the Chicago premiere and, at the $1,500 level, a private performance of my improvised puppet show Conversations We Can’t Have for you and up to two guests. I will come to your home. Or perform on Zoom. I’m flexible.

If you can’t donate right now, sharing this link is free and means everything to me:

Support the Chicago Premiere of Condemned To A Life

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading and for supporting in whatever way you can. I cherish the work that I do.

In a recent performance of Conversations We Can't Have, an audience member wanted to speak to his best friend who had recently passed. After a brief interview in which he told me details about his friend, the puppet on my arm transformed into that friend, and the two of them conversed. The experience was surreal and sweet and funny, and in that moment I realized that I have a great responsibility as a performer to bring truth to the people and stories entrusted to me. It is my job to do them justice. (And I came full circle with a Law & Order reference. Good night, everybody.)

More anon, Amy