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Life Inside An Asylum

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published October 21, 2015 at 12:07 PM EDT

Co-writers Kendall Rileigh and Nicki Miller are joined by local actors Deon Releford-Lee and Mikaela Saccoccio to talk about their play “Asylum”

Mental healthcare practices in the United States have changed quite a bit in the past two centuries. State hospitals and asylums once housed the great majority of mentally ill individuals, but definitions for what constituted mental illness were often vague and included conditions like epilepsy and PMS. In the1950sand60s, government officials pushed towards thedeinstitutionalizationof mental health care, and many individuals experiencing mental illness were released into the community.

A new show on stage at Burning Coal Theatreexplores life inside an asylum in the United States in themid-1960s. It uses aerial theater to explore the lives of four patients and one nurse whose lives are connected through this building. Host FrankStasiotalks with co-writers KendallRileighand Nicki Miller who founded Only Child Aerial Theatre, a Brooklyn-based group co-producing the piece. He is also joined by local actorsDeonReleford-LeeandMikaelaSaccoccio. “Asylum” is on stage atMurphey School Auditorium in Raleigh through Sunday, Nov. 1.

Watch the trailer for the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct98MvqqxoA

Kendall Rileigh in the Burning Coal Theatre Company production of ASYLUM by Nicki Miller and Kendall Rileigh, presented in collaboration with Only Child Aerial Theatre.
Right Image Photography, Inc. /
Kendall Rileigh in the Burning Coal Theatre Company production of ASYLUM by Nicki Miller and Kendall Rileigh, presented in collaboration with Only Child Aerial Theatre.
Sloan Bradford in the Burning Coal Theatre Company production of ASYLUM by Nicki Miller and Kendall Rileigh, presented in collaboration with Only Child Aerial Theatre .
Right Image Photography, Inc. /
Sloan Bradford in the Burning Coal Theatre Company production of ASYLUM by Nicki Miller and Kendall Rileigh, presented in collaboration with Only Child Aerial Theatre .
The cast of the Burning Coal Theatre Company production of ASYLUM by Nicki Miller and Kendall Rileigh, presented in collaboration with Only Child Aerial Theatre.
Right Image Photography, Inc. /
The cast of the Burning Coal Theatre Company production of ASYLUM by Nicki Miller and Kendall Rileigh, presented in collaboration with Only Child Aerial Theatre.

Copyright 2015 North Carolina Public Radio
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio