Synopsis

Shine, Baby, Shine is the story of my younger brother Sonny, his brilliance, his talent as a poet, his bold and kind qualities as a human being, his struggle with anxiety and addiction, and his suicide when he was 52. Our relationship was complicated, as I loved him fiercely but could not fully understand his problems. He struggled to feel “normal,” as he called it. At times he hated me for not having inherited the anxiety/addiction gene. At times I hated him for always returning to his addiction to Xanax when things got to be too much for him.

 

All his life he had a passion for the psychic world. As a child, he made us play “Rise, Table, Rise” until the table we were using broke a leg. He loved the Ouija board. He visited psychics. He longed for an out-of-body experience. Because of this strong interest, I was certain he would communicate with me from the other side if it were at all possible. A few years after his death, I got the courage to visit a medium. And my brother did not disappoint me. He came forward to shed some light on his life and death. He ended the session with some advice for me. He said, “Shine, baby, shine.” Through this show, I say to him, “Shine, Sonny, shine.”  Click here to read an interview about this show on the Fringe Tumblr!