This article originally ran in 2024 and has been updated. Good theater engages us in innumerable ways. It makes us think and feel, draws us into the present moment, and keeps us there. It also provides a peephole into someone else’s experience — one we may not share — and ultimately, hopefully, empathy blooms. That’s how real change happens.
In July 2024, Circuit Arts hosted a screening of the performance of the play Overcome, written by actress Amy Brenneman (Private Practice, The Leftovers, NYPD Blue, Judging Amy), who splits her time between Chilmark and California. Overcome was co-created and directed by Sabrina Peck, a professional director, choreographer, and pioneer in community-engaged theater. Brenneman and Peck have history, and have often collaborated.
“I met Sabrina when I was 18 years old,” says Brennenman. “I’ve always acted, but movement has always been a part of my life as well, and Sabrina has always been a choreographer.”
Overcome follows Brennenman as she learns how to be a true ally for her daughter Charlotte, who was born with a rare chromosomal condition called Phelan-McDermid syndrome. Years of testing and assessment didn’t yield many results, which led Brenneman to surrender to a new path forward.
According to Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Phelan-McDermid syndrome is rare, and hard to detect. Scientists estimate that it occurs in about 2 to 10 of every 1 million live births. Currently, it is believed that there are about 2,200 to 2,500 people diagnosed worldwide.
Overcome predominantly focuses on the first 15 years of Charlotte’s life, before she was officially diagnosed. We watch Brenneman struggle with Charlotte’s seemingly unclassifiable needs, which leads to genetic testing and her eventual diagnosis.
Brenneman and Peck began developing the play in 2016 at the Yard in Chilmark, where they workshopped it in 2019. “I produced my first play, called Mouth Wide Open, at the Yard in 2010, and it became a home base for me,” Brenneman says. “I felt very free and supported in my creative endeavors.”
The live production of Overcome opened at Cotuit Center for the Arts on the Cape in March 2024, and was filmed. Brenneman’s choice to collaborate with Cotuit was due in part to its proximity to Charlotte’s home in Hyannis, and the Riverview School in Sandwich, Charlotte’s alma mater, which educates neurodivergent children and young adults.
Overcome isn’t a straight narrative piece. It’s not a musical. It’s not a one-woman show. Instead, one might describe it as an organic and creative exploration of an issue — an all-senses-on-board production. Music, dance, video elements, movement, and conversations with the audience are woven throughout, adding nuance and depth to the story.
”Sabrina and I love mushing up the elements while working together. We like to go where the story needs to go. Sometimes a nonverbal space is more useful to tell the story,” Brenneman continues. Live musicians accompany the action onstage, and Brenneman says having musicians present in real time was like having two more actors to interact with. “We loved it! Sabrina and I explored with them the different musical themes — the military drumbeat of ‘Dominant Culture’ or the cello solo of longing. It was a very active improvisation.”
Though Brenneman plays herself in the story, she is also the narrator. “The entire play is direct address — me telling a story to the audience. At times I break into a scene with another character, but I always return to telling the story to the audience. I always conceived of it very simply — me telling a story — but depending on what is happening, the play becomes abstract or visual.”
Throughout the viewing of Overcome, the audience’s response was palpable. Gasps, whispers, and at times, a deep silence filled the space. This is in part because Overcome is a solid piece of theater — well-written, well-produced, well-directed — but also it scares us a little and shakes our foundation, especially for those of us who are parents. Witnessing Brenneman’s struggles, realizations, and fierce determination to get to the bottom of Charlotte’s specific needs leads us to consider our own parenting journey and the assumptions we make about our children. It also pokes at old social and educational wounds, asks us to imagine what it must feel like to be considered “other,” and forces us to think about how we may have (or are currently) perpetuating the notion of what normal means.
Through storytelling, movement, and raw emotion, Brenneman did a stellar job showing us how she was swimming upstream wearing ankle and wrist weights for 15 years, with no life preserver in sight. “Charlotte has an ‘invisible disability.’ She is not in a wheelchair and does not use a communication device, for example,” Brenneman says. “And because her diagnosis is so rare, it was easy, in those early years, to expect her to learn and behave in a typical way. We did not have a diagnosis until she was 15. And in terms of working the system, I was not part of any recognized group in the special ed or disability community. It was very confusing, and often very lonely for both Charlotte and me.”
We watch Brenneman take Charlotte from one neuropsychologist to the next. We are flies on the wall as she has meetings with the powers-that-be in the school Charlotte was attending. “Actor Zach Johnson played Mr. Smith, the special ed teacher,” Brenneman says. “For that scene, when we are discussing Charlotte’s IEP (individual education program), I literally wrote down the wording of Charlotte’s real IEP — all well-intentioned, and often helpful. But checking boxes and ‘meeting goals’ in almost a clinical way is a bewildering and ultimately not holistic way of looking at a human being.”
Throughout the play, we hear a man’s voice, representing different people and themes. At first we assume it is Brenneman’s inner critic, but eventually it is revealed to be the voice of dominant society, telling Brenneman that if Charlotte would only work harder at her homework and pay better attention in classes, and if Brenneman would only put her foot down — stop allowing Charlotte to scream and carry on — and get her up to grade level, all would be well, and Charlotte would fit in. Though the focus is on Brenneman’s experience, there is a broader issue being explored, one that Brenneman refers to as the “tyranny of normal.”
“What happened to me, and I think happens to other folks, is you think you’re in your own private Idaho — ‘it’s only my kid’ — but this is a much bigger story,” Brenneman says. “When we finally got a diagnosis, I realized that Charlotte was, in the words of my brother, ‘running a marathon with one leg.’ My understanding shifted entirely. I stopped wondering why she couldn’t do certain things, and became awestruck at what she could do, given her disability.”
Charlotte’s character in the play is not played by an actor, but represented by dancers, including the Yard’s Jesse Jason and Alison Manning, who viscerally and beautifully embody Charlotte without creating a caricature of her.
After viewing the film of the performance, during the Q and A session, Brenneman shared that Charlotte was present throughout the rehearsal process. She likened Charlotte’s presence during rehearsals to that of a standup comic when he roasts his wife onstage. How does the wife feel about being the topic of discussion?
“I was always really clear that this was a mama’s story. I’m very sensitive about not telling someone else’s story,” Brenneman says. “Charlotte wound up at the rehearsals because she was around by chance, and she ended up managing the show. It was entirely organic. I would say to her, ’This scene is about when you were little, and didn’t have a lot of language. You’d get frustrated and I’d get frustrated.’ She understood perfectly. Charlotte herself is now a storyteller and theater maker. She understands processing experience through a creative offering.”
At the end of the play, Charlotte walks out onstage. “Her appearance at the end was Sabrina’s idea, and now it is my favorite moment in the play — it is breathtaking,” Brenneman continues. “The audience gasps, because I’ve been talking for over an hour about this super-problematic journey with a complicated daughter, and then Char just sort of comes onstage, beautiful and capable. After the show, she’d greet people and thank them for coming. They were often very emotional, but Charlotte handled that warmly. She intuitively senses the power of the piece, and feels seen, I think. Just the way I do. What was a dark and sometimes shameful journey gets a big bright lamp of love shown on it. Community gets built when we come out of the shadows.”
The standing ovation at the end of the viewing honored Brenneman and Charlotte, of course, but it also recognized the other folks who worked so hard to birth the play: actors Sara Bleything, Holly Hanson, Lynne Johnson, Zack Johnson, Hadassah Nelson, and Rebecca Riley, the production crew, musicians, Cotuit Center for the Arts executive director David Kuehn, Brenneman’s family members, and many others nurtured Overcome into existence.
And what of Charlotte? Now in her 20s, she’s living a full and independent life, filled with friends, in Hyannis. “From her diagnosis on, it was no longer about trying to jam her into a system,” Brenneman said. “Once we got it, it was, ‘Let’s support this person just as she is.’”
There will be a screening of Overcome at the Woods Hole Film Festival on July 25 (woodsholefilmfestival.org/events/overcome). This is a recording of a performance presented at the Cotuit Center for the Arts in March 2024.