Co-sponsored by the American Music Theatre Project (AMTP)

Screening and Q&A: GET OUT ALIVE is a new autobiographical afrogoth musical that gives voice to a troubled artist’s recovery after a suicide attempt. Nikki’s offbeat and honest approach to sharing her mental health journey shows that even when life leads us to a bad place, we can always make it out alive.

Thursday, February 2, 2023 | 7:00pm

In January 2020, Chicago multimedia artist Nikki Lynette’s celebrated stage play Get Out Alive, which was originally developed at AMTP at Northwestern University, debuted in the LookOut Series at Steppenwolf Theatre Company right before the pandemic shut the stages of the city down. Raw, electric and thrilling, this film adaptation is a celebration of Black life and culture and aims to deepen the conversation around mental health in the hope of substantial change. The film has been chosen for over a dozen film festival around the world, including BronzeLens in Atlanta (Winner-Best Actress), Pan African Film & Arts Festival (Los Angeles), Melbourne Lift-Off Film Festival, the African Diaspora International Film Festival (DC, NYC), and the Black Harvest Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. Get Out Alive is an unapologetic celebration of life told by an intersectional team of Black, queer, trans, and women creatives. By defying established performance genres and curating a trauma-informed experience, the show hopes to create a better future for artists and audiences alike.

Join writer/performer Nikki Lynette, director Roger Ellis, and creative producer Brannon Bowers for a private screening of the film followed by an intimate Q&A co-moderated by Studio Lab Director, Dave Tolchinsky and Meghan Finn, LCSW.

Get Out Alive contains strong language, brief nudity, emotionally charged subject matter, and references to abuse, trauma, suicide, grief, and assault.