Goes Off-Broadway!

Help Amplify the Conversation About Mental Health

Crazy Mama: A True Story of Love and Madness, and the Search for Home

“The day our family lost normal was a day like any other…”
What happens when the person who is supposed to keep you safe… disappears right in front of you?

Crazy Mama is the unforgettable true story of a young girl whose mother is suddenly overtaken by mental illness — and the lifelong journey that follows as she tries to understand, survive, and hold onto love in the face of the unimaginable.

Set in a small Southern town where “everybody thinks they’re normal,” this deeply human play, filled with unexpected humor and heart, explores the fragile line between sanity and madness, memory and truth, hope and reality. At its core, Crazy Mama asks a question that so many families live with but rarely speak aloud: How do you love someone who is still here… but not the same?

Why This Story Matters

“One out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your three best friends… if they’re okay, it’s you.”

Mental illness touches nearly every family — but too often, it lives in silence, shame, or misunderstanding. This play breaks that silence. Through humor, heartbreak, and unflinching honesty, Crazy Mama opens a dialogue about mental illness and the stigma. A mother-daughter relationship of resilience, survival, and forgiveness tells the stories we tell ourselves to keep going And ultimately, it offers something rare: Hope.

Why We Need You

Our production begins previews September 16 at 59E59 Theatre in New York. And thanks to generous support from The Elysabeth Kleinhans Theatrical Foundation the Ron and Cheryl Howard Family Foundation, and other friends, we are already part of the way there! We still need to raise $180,000 to support artists, production, and the full realization of this powerful story. When you give, you’re not just funding a play. You’re creating a space where audiences can see themselves reflected feel less alone begin conversations they’ve been afraid to have.

The Journey

Throughout the play, a haunting refrain echoes in a blues song that connects the scenes, “Crazy Mama, won’t you come home…” That longing – for return, for healing, for understanding – is something we all recognize. And in the end, after years of struggle, loss, and searching, the story offers a quiet revelation and a moment of redemption. Not in a way you might expect. But in a way that inspires and brings peace.

Join Us

Whether you give $25 or $10,000, you are part of this journey.You are helping bring this story into the light. You are helping someone feel seen. You are helping a conversation begin. Because stories like this don’t just entertain—They heal.

Contributions to Rubicon Theatre Company towards Crazy Mama’s Off-Broadway run are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Bring Crazy Mama Off-Broadway to New York!

SUPPORT LEVELS:

“Laced with humor and pathos, this powerful play is a testament to the steely resilience of the human “heart and the enduring nature of hope,” said director Anson Williams. “Crazy Mama is more than a play—it’s a poetic journey through the labyrinth of love, despair, and redemption.”

Funds raised will support theatre rental, union labor, travel, housing, marketing, and production expenses.