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[0:04] Lauren Van Hemert: This is the Beltline to Broadway podcast.

[0:08] Lauren Van Hemert: I'm Lauren Van Hemert, your host, and on this episode, I'm chatting with Carlita Victoria.

[0:32] Lauren Van Hemert: Welcome everyone to the newly branded Beltline to Broadway podcast covering the theater from inside the Beltline in Raleigh, North Carolina to New York City and beyond.

[0:46] Lauren Van Hemert: If you have followed our Doon stage for a while, you might have noticed our new logo and name, which we changed because over the past year we have welcomed more and more international listeners.

[1:01] Lauren Van Hemert: So wherever in the world you are listening to us from, welcome.

[1:06] Lauren Van Hemert: We hope to continue to create a space for theater lovers to have conversations that are grounded in empathy and humanity.

[1:15] Lauren Van Hemert: On this episode, I am chatting with Carlita Victoria, who was last seen on stage in the North Carolina theater production of Kinky Boots just over a year ago.

[1:28] Lauren Van Hemert: Carlita is a singer and dancer who has performed all over the world, but behind her captivating smile and infectious energy, she has struggled like so many of us with anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

[1:45] Lauren Van Hemert: And that is where our conversation begins.

[1:49] Lauren Van Hemert: For people who don't know, not only are you a multi-hyphenate performer, but you have founded this incredible organization called the Darkness Rising Project.

[2:02] Lauren Van Hemert: So can you share a bit of your experience dealing with anxiety and depression and PTSD and why you started this organization?

[2:11] Carlita Victoria: You know, you go through your life as a child, you know, teenager, adult, and then you say, oh, well, these are just things about me. Like, oh, I just worry a lot. People, my, you know, my friends just thought, oh, you know, she just overthinks everything. She's just a big thinker, you know, where I'm just a worrier. And I just attributed it to that. And I never thought that maybe I should see someone to talk more deeply about some of the deeper issues that were happening. And I came to a place in my life where I was in a show and I was enjoying the show, having the time of my life on stage. Uh, but every night after the show, I just felt empty. I felt like just a show. And I didn't tell anyone what I was going through, what I was experiencing, but um, trigger warning, I am gonna talk uh briefly about suicide, but I would go home or to my back to my um cast housing, and I would try to find ways to uh die.

And um, I would stay alive just for the next show and say, oh, I'll just stay alive for the next show. Okay, I'll stay alive for the next show. And that's really what was keeping me going was I'll stay alive for the show. And I'm just so glad that I finally reached out for help, but it took me so long to reach out for help because I come from a culture where we don't reach out for help. We're known to be the nurturers, we're known to be strong and, you know, powerful and to not need help. Um, but that is just a myth. Everyone needs help. And having gone through that experience, I realized then that someone else, if I'm going through this, and people assume she's fine, someone else is also going through this, and maybe I'm assuming that person is fine.

And so I decided, well, I don't want anyone else to go through this. And so if I can at all help it, I will. And that was the beginning of Darkness Rising Project, um, which is a nonprofit that was created to provide resources and wellness workshops and inspirational music and experiences to the Black community.

[4:30] Lauren Van Hemert: Thank you so much for opening up and sharing your story. I think so often mental health is stigmatized and it's something we don't talk about and share.

[4:43] Lauren Van Hemert: And so I'm so appreciative of you sharing that because I think it helps so many other people.

[4:51] Lauren Van Hemert: It's really important.

[4:54] Carlita Victoria: Like so many other things in our society, mental health issues marginalize Black and Brown people. And a lot of it, as I've done these interviews, I'm learning is rooted in the legacy of historical trauma that Black and Brown people have been going through for hundreds of years.

[5:18] Carlita Victoria: And that's why there's this armor of resilience. Can you talk about why it's so difficult for BIPOC people to address mental health issues and seek help?

[5:32] Carlita Victoria: Absolutely. There are a number of barriers to um to our mental health resources, and then there are also cultural questions that we have, facts and myths that are in within our community, and all these things I think um can impact whether or not we reach out for help. I think that a big part of it for me was uh being raised in a uh a Southern church setting where um I was told that if I just prayed it away, then I would be fine. And I while I am certain I am a believer, I also believe that it is fine to pray and it's also fine to seek therapy, that you can do both, that you don't have to choose between the two. And so it's important for me to there because there are people who are believers and there are people who are not believers.

We all believe in different things, and I think that we should be able to do that and seek therapy at the same time. So I think that is a big part of it. Um, a lot of times in Black and Brown families there is an assumption that if you have what you need, if you if you have your basic needs, as in food, water, shelter, then you should not be complaining about anything. And a lot of that um belief comes from the fact that we have been oppressed for so many years, and we have had to fight so hard for what we do have that when we do have the thing that we need, let's hold on to that thing, let's be thankful for that thing, and there is no need to, you know, you have that thing. Why would you need more than that?

You don't need mental health services. You are good, you're fine. Um, so I think that that is also a belief that we um that we're, you know, at Darkness Rising, we're working really hard to break through. Um, and then there's also racism, which is one of the biggest barriers to um to our ability to seek help. Because even in terms of health, um, just, you know, health and mental health services, there are all of these barriers. And some of that would include things like um, we see that Black women are dying more often in labor, um, in terms, you know, and health-wise. And then mental health-wise, we're not seeing enough, or we're not having enough access to culturally competent therapists.

[8:08] Carlita Victoria: So our Black therapists are out there, uh, but we don't have enough access to them. And some of those barriers are things like insurance. Um, and there's a lot of red tape that providers have to go through in order to be able to take insurance. So it's not as simple as I'm saying, oh, I sure I'll take Blue Cross Blue Shield and I'll take Aetna and I'll take this and I'll take that. They have to go through a lot of red tape in order to be able to take various insurances. And because of the communities that, because of racism at the end of the day, uh, there are many Black and Brown people who do not even have insurance. So maybe we don't have insurance, and maybe we don't have the insurance that these Black and Brown therapists do take.

There are so many different layers, and at the bottom line is it comes down often to racism. Um, and that prevents us from being able to get the help that we need. Systemic racism is prevalent in our healthcare system in this country. And it's very unfortunate, but you don't have to look much further than the COVID crisis if you want proof of that.

[9:19] Lauren Van Hemert: Something that's really extraordinary that your project is doing, and this is how I found out about Darkness Rising. Um, I read an article in Playbill about Darkness Rising, teaming up with Adrian Warren to form a Broadway performers mental health assistance program, which is extraordinary because so many of the shows and the producers are helping fund services.

[9:47] Lauren Van Hemert: So talk to me about this program and how it is helping so many of our friends and family who are out of work right now.

[9:55] Carlita Victoria: Yes. So like you said, so many of us are out of work and we've been out of work for an entire year. And so it can be not only disheartening for actors to be out of work, but it can be detrimental to our mental health to be out of work for such a long period of time. It's it takes so, you know, a lot of us eat community, a lot of us we need to be able to move our bodies. We need to, you know, this is our outlet, and we are now without our outlet and for an entire year. So what we're seeing is that a lot of actors are experiencing um depression, anxiety, isolation, all of these things during COVID. And in addition to that, then you have the financial aspect of, you know, there's they're not receiving an income.

And so the stress of the financial stress of not having an income. And then a lot of people also no longer have insurance due to COVID. And there's all of these factors that create this overwhelming sense of, hey, we need help. So we wanted to figure out how we could help actors. And we figured that maybe one of the best ways to do that was to try to get therapy for as many people as possible. And so we reached out to Adrian Warren because we discovered that Adrian has spoken to her producers over at uh Tina, the musical. And she had spoken to them right after George Floyd was killed, and said, hey, we are struggling. You know, much of that cast is, you know, Black and Brown people. So a lot of people are really struggling, and they decided to, for the entire cast to provide them with free therapy, and um to subsidize that with the finances directly from the producers.

[11:50] Carlita Victoria: And so we started meeting regularly with Adrian to figure out how we could do this for more people. And we created uh this huge resource packet that includes uh mental health resources for actors specifically, for people who live in New York specifically, and then for all of these various uh intersectional communities, LGBTQIA community, uh people who are maybe um living with uh postpartum depression, people, um people who are vets, people who are working through who are in recovery and working through uh substance abuse, um all of these different, you know, various communities, um BIPOC people, white allies, all, you know, various communities and how um ways to help basically.

[12:38] Carlita Victoria: And we so we created this huge resource packet. We reached out to several producers and we asked them to support their companies financially by providing them with free therapy, and they said yes. You never know until you ask. There is no tourism in New York right now.

[13:05] Lauren Van Hemert: So, was there any hesitation on their part to do this?

[13:11] Carlita Victoria: I would say that the shows who signed on, there was actually not hesitation on their part at all. And we're getting more and more shows every day. The shows that have already signed on, they were extremely ready to do something for their company. And we were like, yes, love this. So they said to us, we've been trying to brainstorm a way to help our company, and we didn't know what to do, and we love these ideas. Thank you for providing these resources. Like, yeah, let's do it. And I think that it was a nervous, it was, you know, it's a scary thing to ask producers to pay for everything during a pandemic where no money's coming in. It's a scary thing to ask. But at the same time, we know that Broadway will be back.

And so we know that the money will come in, we will have audiences again. You know, Broadway will return. It may be a while, but it will return. And so, with that in mind, you know, it's just a reminder to these shows: like, hey, your producers care about you, your producers love you, your producers want you to be well. The reason why we started with Broadway is because we knew that these are the shows that are set to return. They have a return date, you know, as of now. And so it became an easier ask because when producers know that their actors are coming back, then they know that they want their actors to be in the best possible shape.

[14:51] Lauren Van Hemert: So, of course, you know, they're probably asking their actors to, hey, you know, do the best that you can in whatever way you can, but to put your money behind that and say, hey, we're investing in your mental health, that makes people want to come back to the show. That makes people want to work with you again. And I think that, you know, starting there with Broadway, and then our goal is to then include tours and then include regional houses, and you know, to get as far we're gonna push this thing as far as we can. The goal is mental health care for all, and that's the way it should be. Although that, you know, as we've already established, it's not always the way it is.

[15:36] Lauren Van Hemert: So it's amazing. Are you able to share what shows other than Tina have signed on for this?

[15:43] Carlita Victoria: I can share that Girl from the North Country has signed on. I cannot share all of the names of the shows because some of the shows would like to remain anonymous. I think that as time goes on, we will be eventually able to share more and more names. But I will say that a lot of people are receiving help. The other day we spoke with Actress Equity about diversity and inclusion and mental health, and one of the company members of Tina was sharing about her personal experience with being able to receive this free therapy, and it was just beautiful to hear. I didn't have therapy before, I do now. It is helping me through this pandemic.

[16:26] Carlita Victoria: As I've been doing these interviews, I think, especially in the beginning, people were looking for like a point of reference, like a mental point of reference. And so people were comparing the pandemic to at first, everyone was comparing it to 9/11. Some people were comparing it to the AIDS crisis, and then other people would just say, we're in grief. This mimics the stages of grief. Does this mimic any other kind of event or the grieving process? Or is this mental health crisis that we're seeing now, is this its own trauma?

[17:11] Carlita Victoria: I truly believe that this is its own trauma. It has always been difficult for me to kind of compare crises because I feel like trauma hits you differently in different ways, depending on what is happening. And I feel like COVID specifically, it's its own unprecedented, as much as we hate that word now, because we keep hearing it, but it is its own unprecedented situation, it's its own unprecedented crisis because it hit us so hard and it is continuing to hit us so hard, and we are living through grief and we're trying to work through grief and we're trying to create income for ourselves while we're at home and we're isolated and we're living in anxiety and fear trying and we're trying to stay healthy.

There's so many different layers and so many factors. And then to put on top of that, if you're already living with a mental health condition, I have had some very rough days. I've had days when I could not get out of bed. I have had days where I didn't leave the house for days on end. Not even to, you know, they say get out, take a walk. I've had days on end where I did not leave the house. I have a dog, so I did have to leave the house to take a walk with my dog, but I've also had days where I had to call a friend for help because I was so depressed that I couldn't do anything. I needed my friend to walk my dog, you know, and I also I have irrational fears. My anxiety levels are pretty high during COVID, especially.

And so for anyone who might be living through that, to put on the pressure of a public health crisis with that where you could get sick at any moment, it's terrifying. And it is for me, it is its own trauma. And hopefully, when this is over, I hope that we all have our different I hope that we find ways to heal from it. It's something that we're gonna be healing from for a long time.

[19:30] Lauren Van Hemert: I agree. And I think it is a long-term, like you're saying, a long-term health crisis because it, you know, things aren't gonna reopen and all of a sudden everybody's gonna be better. I think people are gonna be afraid, people are gonna be anxious, people are going to be untrusting. I mean, I think there's a whole level of our personal boundaries have changed. The whole world has changed. And I think as we I sometimes think of this as kind of a re-entry into the world into society, I think really it's gonna be interesting. And I find what you're doing so interesting too, because so many of us, we tie our identity with what we do, and I think that's especially true for creative people when I think of the impact of an artist without an audience, that's huge.

[20:38] Carlita Victoria: I think that if we had known during Kinky Boots that that would be our last bow for a whole year, I can only imagine, and every show that I do, I think to myself, this could be my last bow because I have no idea what the next show is, but I never you say that to yourself, but you also never think it's to this, you never think I'm gonna go a whole year without anything. But it is so much of that is tied to who we are, and I've been working with my therapist on what else am I? You know, how do I find my identity outside of acting? What else can I give to the world? How else can I help someone? How else can I help someone else? How else can I feed my own soul aside from acting? What else? Who else am I?

[21:32] Lauren Van Hemert: Does it surprise you that people have leaned on the arts so much during this pandemic to feed their mind, body, and spirit?

[21:48] Carlita Victoria: It doesn't surprise me because I think that the arts never get what we're truly worth anyway. You know, in the budget, the first thing always goes the arts. However, we feed people's souls, we give people joy. We lift people up, we give people great memories, we give them music, we give them dance, we give, you know, we give it all. And I think that people don't realize people outside of the arts often don't realize just how much they lean on the arts every single day, and how much the arts are truly a part of their lives in every single literally every day that goes by. The arts are if you're just playing a song while you're in the shower, that art is a part of your life, and that's jump start to your day. That was an artist that did that. I'm kind of glad that people are seeing, like, you know what? I do depend on art a lot. Yes, give to the arts, the arts matter, the arts are important.

[22:57] Lauren Van Hemert: You are also a personal trainer, and you've been offering virtual classes online, personal training online. Where does movement play into our mental state and our mental well-being?

[23:12] Carlita Victoria: Movement has helped me so much through this pandemic. I used to take classes, you know, with other humans before COVID. And that was how I refreshed myself. That was how I reinvigorated myself to build myself up, you know, to go on to the next day. It's how I release those endorphins. And now that we are in the house, I don't have that sense of community, but I still do have a sense of community because even though we're in squares on Zoom, I see everybody else really going for it, giving in their all, living their best lives and sweating it out. So to be able to get up, move my body, sweat, release some endorphins, that can change a really bad day to like, all right, feeling good, maybe only for 30 minutes, but like, hey, I had 30 minutes of a really good time.

[24:10] Carlita Victoria: And you'd be surprised at how just 30 minutes of sweating and forgetting about that really bad part of your day, it can help. It can lift your spirits in ways that I cannot describe. And so I've been very thankful to be able to move my body during the pandemic. I'm not one of those people who believes that exercising is a bandage or some type of just like, "Oh, well, you're depressed, just go exercise and you'll be better." I don't believe that. I still very much believe that you have to go through a healing process and work through the underlying issues there. But I do firmly believe that getting up and moving your body, even if it's just for five to ten minutes a day, can really help lift your spirits.

[25:01] Carlita Victoria: The other thing I really love about Darkness Rising is you offer these, I'll call them workshops for lack of a better word, in classes from yoga to vision boarding. Where does mindfulness fit into the mental health equation?

[25:21] Carlita Victoria: Yeah, and workshops is the perfect word. We call them our wellness Wednesday workshops, and we have those once a month, and they are always free to the community. So we did two vision board workshops, and it made me think to myself, well, is this about only goals or is this about really taking in where I am today? Can I be happy with who I am today as of right now? I think that often when we do vision boards, we're only thinking about who do I want to be a year from now? How am I going to be this amazing best version of myself? But I want to be the best version of myself today. I want to be happy with where I am today. And I think in terms of mindfulness, that has really helped me in therapy, just being right where you are in this very moment, just being.

[26:15] Carlita Victoria: Has anxiety that can be difficult. I often think in the past or I think in the future. I very rarely think in the present. And so mindfulness very specifically is something that I have been working through in therapy so that I can just be.

[26:33] Carlita Victoria: I love that. I interviewed a woman last year. It was pre-pandemic. So it wasn't, actually, I think it was more than a year ago now, but it was pre-pandemic. And we were talking about mental health and depression. She also suffers from depression and anxiety. And on social media, on her platform, she just seems like such a positive person. And so I was asking her about positivity, and she said positivity is a choice and it has to be practiced. And she gave me this list of rituals she does to trigger herself into practicing positivity, practicing happiness. Do you have any rituals that you use or that you've heard about as you've been doing this work that help people cope or change their mindset or shift the mindset a little bit?

[27:38] Carlita Victoria: I do. So for people who may have panic attacks or who may work through irrational fears, irrational thoughts, things like that, I found that what has been most helpful with those things is grounding exercises. So some of those grounding exercises include me saying affirmations out loud, no matter where I am, in public or in private, it doesn't matter, just literally actually saying them out loud. And so for me, one of those affirmations is "I am safe." And I say that over and over. It doesn't matter who's around, I'll just go ahead and say it. And that grounds me back into where I am. Another grounding exercise that I do is tapping, just like a light tapping. And so that brings me to the present tense, to just being right in this moment because it's just this light sense of touch that is very comforting. And so that's another thing that I found to be very helpful.

[28:40] Carlita Victoria: Another thing is using the five senses. So just identifying where you are, what you're doing. So it could be, "Hmm, what do you smell? I smell cookies." "What do you see? I see a paper towel." "What do you hear? I hear a grasshopper." And so the grounding exercise is being right where you are in that moment. I all I hear is a grasshopper. All I smell is cookies. All I see is a paper towel. And that puts me right in the space. It doesn't put me in yesterday's space, and it doesn't put me in tomorrow. It puts me exactly where I am. I see things, I smell things, I hear things. I touch here, this is where I am. And so I found those things to be very helpful because I do have panic attacks, and even for people who don't have panic attacks, for anyone who's living in the past or in the future, I think that grounding exercises can be very helpful.

[29:41] Lauren Van Hemert: I'm gonna watch this back and take notes because you were just so insightful about this, and you're speaking so clearly about this. I also suffer from panic attacks. A few years ago, my brother passed away, and several months after he passed, I would get what I now know as panic attacks. But at the time, I couldn't identify them; I could have sworn there was something wrong with my heart. And what I realized is this is really an invisible disease. Because at the beginning, on the outside, I looked great. And so people would be like, "What's wrong with you?" And on the inside, I literally felt like I was having a heart attack. And I always point to this picture. I have this picture of meeting Kristen Chenoweth, and I'm smiling in this picture.

The night before this picture was taken, I was in the hospital with a panic attack, and I couldn't wear the cute outfit I wanted to wear to meet her because I had these sticky things all over me from the echocardiogram that they took in the emergency room. And I always point to that picture because I'm like, the girl you see in that picture, she's smiling. She's certainly happy to meet this Broadway star, but she was really hurting, and that's the part you don't see. You never know, and that's why I think these things are so important to talk about.

[31:10] Carlita Victoria: Absolutely. And thank you so much for sharing that. That is the key, one of the key reasons why we started Darkness Rising, because I think that people always see me as someone who's happy and excited and ready to laugh because I do. I love to laugh. However, I was hiding such a big part of myself, and I was hiding so much pain. And I started just being honest with people about it. And I also started posting about it on my Instagram. And I, you know, I, this is who I am. And for a while I was afraid. I said, "Well, what if a casting director sees it? What if they don't want to hire me? Or what if a future husband were to see that? Would they see me differently? When is it too early to tell someone you're dating?" You know, all of these things that I had to think about. But then I had to think, well, who is the real me? And I want to be able to be myself. I want to be able to face these things that I'm going through head-on and not hide them.

[32:25] Carlita Victoria: And so we're not even necessarily hiding them; we're just trying to move on and live our lives. For me, it was just trying to survive to the next day. Trying to make it to the next day.

[32:39] Lauren Van Hemert: Yeah. And that's why we've spent so many episodes. So for those of you who want to know, that's why we've spent so many episodes of these podcasts and broadcasts talking about this, because to look at Carlita, to look at her beautiful smile, to see her on stage, you wouldn't know. As I mentioned, you performed all over the world. What did you learn here on North Carolina stages that informed who you became as a performing artist, as a dancer, singer?

[33:13] Carlita Victoria: Right after college, I went on tour with Baba Chuck Davis and the African American Dance Ensemble. And if you know Baba Chuck, or if you knew Baba Chuck, then you know how what a huge heart he had and how giving he was and how much he cared about people. And so I think that one of the biggest lessons that I learned was to work hard. Yes, work hard, give it your all, sweat it out, do everything that you possibly can in preparation for that stage. But also off stage is where a lot of it really matters. And I think that when I back then when I was young, I don't think I really took it all in the way that I wish that I had, but now thinking back on that time with him, I think Baba Chuck was a man who would give the shirt off of his back and who gave it all in every single rehearsal, who gave it all in every single community meeting, which didn't involve any dancing or any singing. In every single possible way, he was consistently giving back to his community and making space for people to be able to truly be themselves.

[34:28] Carlita Victoria: And so what I would like to take into my life and what I would like for people to remember about me is that I did as much as I could to also give back to the community.

[34:42] Lauren Van Hemert: I want to thank Carlita Victoria for sharing her story and helping the Black community begin conversations with family, coworkers, and friends about mental health and emotional well-being. I will put additional information about Carlita's organization, Darkness Rising, in the episode notes. If you like what you've heard today, please consider subscribing to the podcast, following us on social media at RDU on stage, or visiting us online at Beltline to Broadway dot com. Until next time, I'll see you at the theater.