Visual & Performing Arts

Nikki Lynette is a multidisciplinary artist who has been fusing mental health activism into her edgy performance art, music, and film projects since 2016. Her dedication to thriving with a mental illness informs her art & her advocacy. With her musical about depression GET OUT ALIVE, Nikki made history as the first black female playwright to be produced by American Music Theatre Project and the first Steppenwolf LookOut Series work to present at NAMT. In Fall of 2024, GET OUT ALIVE was optioned by Tony & Grammy Award winning producers, Octopus Theatricals. The world premiere of her directorial debut film, Happy Songs About Unhappy Things, screened at Cinequest Film and Creativity Festival in Spring of 2024 and is currently making its rounds on the festival circuit. 

Anna Wooden, Theatre & Dance’s new Assistant Professor of Costume Design, had the pleasure of working with her before coming to UWL and helped secure her invitation to ArtsFest.  Prior to Nikki’s visit to UWL, Nikki shared with Anna some details of her life and work.

Can you tell me a little bit about your path to becoming a theater artist? 

I didn't start out in theater. I've been an indie recording artist my entire adult life, and I didn't get into theater until I had a mental break and wrote a musical about it during my suicide recovery. I had no plans. I workshopped the musical when I was opening for Pussy Riot's first American Tour. Next thing I knew I was becoming the first Black woman to be produced by American Music Theatre Project. Not only did I not anticipate making it this far as a theatermaker, I didn't know I would love the artform as deeply as I do. With me being a multidisciplinary artist, I find that theater (and film as well) give me a platform to combine all the things I'm good at into ONE artistic experience. I'd never seen a musical on Broadway when I wrote GET OUT ALIVE. Now I'm signed with a Broadway producer. Nobody is more surprised by all of this cool than me. 

Get Out Alive was your first play, and now it’s in production with Octopus Theatricals. What have been some of your favorite steps in that journey?

I love artist residencies. Like... love love love them. It's how I learned the importance of the artistic process. Every chance to take a deep dive into developing the musical has felt so surreal to me. From my first workshop presentation with American Music Theatre Project, to my developmental run of at Steppenwolf in their LookOut Series, to doing script revisions in a rocking chair on the porch of one of the houses on Goodspeed Opera House's grounds, to Amas Musical Theatre giving me an opportunity to transcribe my songs to sheet music and sing them with an orchestra and Broadway vocalists, to CCAE in San Diego giving me the chance to finally work through the visual component of my music on a 16x9 foot LED screen, to being the first American playwright to be invited into Cove Park's Musical Theatre Writing Residency and being brought out to Scotland to meet some of the most amazing creatives I've ever met in my life... I love all of it. The process is where the magic lives. 

How do Get Out Alive and Happy Songs relate to each other?

I consider them to be part of the same thematic world. Their aesthetics match, the subject matter and how we tell stories match. The main difference is GET OUT ALIVE is about my story, but Happy Songs About Unhappy Things is about all of our stories. It's about the universal nature of the mental health stuff we are all navigating, and how we can navigate it better.

Happy Songs About Unhappy Things is a documusical. Can you tell us more about what that means?

Happy Songs About Unhappy Things is equal parts theatrical performance art and documentary. We intentionally blur the lines between documentary film and theater to explore tough subject matter in a way that's accessible and relevant to the era we occupy now. I love that performance art has so much power to engage people, and I love documentary film's ability to inform. Happy Songs About Unhappy Things is the content I was looking for when I first began my mental health journey. Because folks weren't publicly discussing mental health in 2016 when I started treatment for my mental illness. It's currently in the festival circuit so I can't put it out yet but I look forward to when it's publically available so that anyone who needs it can find it.

Can you share a little bit about your work as a mental health activist?

I started out in the psyche hospital, in group therapy. All the women on my ward felt stigmatized, misrepresented, and misunderstood when it came to their mental health issues. So I told them that when I got out I would tell our stories. Trying to keep my word to them helped keep me accountable to my wellness goals. It started with just writing articles and making content about mental health for All HipHop and AfroPunk. Then in 2018, I started a concert series called "Mental Health Turn Ups" where I and other artists would perform, and the entire evening was dedicated to mental health awareness. The shows would include art experiences and mental health professionals and everything, and the money I was making was going toward filming Happy Songs About Unhappy Things, and to the mental health organizations that were doing outreach with us. It wasn't making a lot of money at first, but it started picking up because I was the only person doing it. But I was in suicide recovery at the time, my focus was divided. A rapper I know here in Chicago appropriated my event series and started doing it himself, and didn't include me or credit me. He legit co-opted everything I was doing, except he was focused on monetizing it from the beginning. I was disgusted by the commodification of suffering. It was so corny and gross. I made a decision to never be like that, I wanted to be a real activist. I also learned to be quiet about my plans and ambitions. I got trained as a Lived Experience Speaker with NAMI Chicago and started going into schools to discuss mental health with teens and families. I used what I learned in training to inform my own social impact art and online content. Within a couple years I was awarded Ambassador of the Year, and a couple years later I became the first person from our Lived Experience Speaker program to be voted onto NAMI Chicago's Board of Directors. I now have 2 mental health oriented films that have been on the film festival circuit, one of which still is. I have a musical being developed by a Broadway producer. I've done a TEDxTalk. I've won awards. I've traveled internationally for my work. I've helped raise money for NAMI Chicago's 988 crisis line, a resource that anyone can call 24 hours a day to get help. And the guy who appropriated my work? He has a struggling mental health themed coffee shop that went viral several months ago when his employees called him out for not paying his staff and being emotionally abusive. Needless to say, I am happy I invested those years into developing my art and my impact. I still keep in touch with a couple of the ladies from the psyche ward. We are all proud of each other. Of course we have all had some setbacks in our wellness over the years, we're mentally ill so it comes with the territory. But we are learning to live better everyday. Considering where we came from, that's a pretty big flex.

ArtsFest will present a screening of Nikki’s film, Happy Songs About Unhappy Things, on Friday March 28 in the movie theatre in the Student Union.  The film will be followed by a talkback with the artist.