On September 9, 1982, on her 25th birthday, Julie Ridge became the 242nd person to swim from England to France. On April 11, 1991, Ridge was hospitalized for 21 days and unceremoniously received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder I. Julie’s one-woman show Bipolar & The English Channel tells the story of how a casual mile-a-day pool swimmer became an English Channel swimmer in nine short months and her 17-hour, 55-minute zig-zag journey across those grey murky seas. It also tells the less glamorous story of a world-record holding endurance athlete who wakes up one not-so-fine day floridly manic, locked down on an unforgiving New York City psychiatric ward – and her arduous journey back to sanity and a fulfilling life.  

On March 26, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia presented a performance of Julie Ridge’s one-woman show: https://collegeofphysicians.org/events/bipolar-english-channel-one-woman-show In advance of the event, Guy Glass has had the pleasure of speaking with writer and performer Julie Ridge about her work. 

Guy: Julie, I had the privilege of seeing your show Bipolar and the English Channel a couple of years ago in New York. It was informative, entertaining, and inspirational. As you know, I help arrange programming for the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. As a psychiatrist and playwright, theatrical representations of mental health issues are right up my alley. I am so glad it is working out to have you bring it to the College! 

The very striking title of your piece brings together two images that seem completely unrelated, but you fuse them together so convincingly. Can you say something about your background that sheds some light on the title, about your life as a swimmer, and then your discovery of your diagnosis? 

Julie: With the title, I’ve tried to conjure the image of how my life with bipolar disorder and my unlikely swim across the English Channel run parallel to each other and are symbiotically intertwined. My decision to the swim the English Channel came on as spontaneously as a manic episode. I tell the full story in the show, but the germ was planted when a friend who swam two miles-a-day broke his wrist, and I doubled my casual one mile a day in empathy for his mandatory pool abstinence. At the time, I was an actress performing in my first Broadway show and swam for peace of mind and to stay in shape. The story of learning I had bipolar disorder is the subject of the second act of the show – so, I ask your readers to come see it to hear the tale. 

Guy: Can you tell us how and why you decided to turn your story into a show? What is it like for you to perform? What has the reaction to the show been like, especially from the mental health community? 

Julie: After my diagnosis in 1991, I went back to school to get my master’s degree and became a psychiatric social worker. Over time, I’d developed a seminar that told the story of my English Channel swim and bipolar diagnosis. The decision to turn the informal seminar into a show first arose when I discovered I was a single hour shy of collecting my Actor’s Equity pension. I asked all my friends who were still in the theater if they could write me into a contract show, maybe as a person lying behind a couch or something, even just for the first act of one show, and I’d refund them my salary – I just needed that single hour to collect a lifetime pension. A couple of years went by, no offers were made, I was getting closer and closer to 65, so I decided to do it myself. I wasn’t going to lose my pension over one measly hour.  

On the 5th Anniversary of the non-profit organization I founded in memory of my dad, I pulled together the least expensive Actor’s Equity contract possible that would get me that hour. That contract was four staged readings at the Studio Theater on Theater Row off Broadway in New York City. It was the first time I’d disclosed my bipolar disorder publicly and, frankly, I was terrified. But community members, family, buddies from high school and college, and colleagues were incredibly warm and receptive.  

That four-day run led to performances in the United Solo Festival off Broadway for two consecutive years. A performance at my sister’s temple outside of Boston was seen by a friend with connections to the Sedona Festival, which led to another gig at the JCC in Hartford Ct and so on. It’s my hope that I will be able to perform the show each year in venues across the country.  

As for how it is to perform it – I actually have acute social phobia and get terribly anxious every time I perform the show. It’s odd, because performing when I was an actress was easy and highly enjoyable. But those shows were written by other people and not about my life. Doing something so intimate and personal is quite different. I never know how it’s going to land and be received.  

Guy: I see that in addition to Bipolar & The English Channel, there is a documentary film about you. Can you say something about how this came about?  

Julie: Seems there’s a story behind everything! Zac Norrington, a film student at the New School in New York City needed a subject for his Capstone project senior year. Long distance swimming and cold-water swimming was something of personal interest to him because of a near-death experience his grandfather had. Zac brilliantly thought to contact Ned Dennison, the Director of the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (IMSHOF) for recommendations on swimmers he might interview in New York. Turns out that swims I’d done in 1983 and 1985 put me in the record books. My athletic resume in the 1980s was out of the ordinary, and to my amazement, I was inducted into IMSHOF in 1985.  

Ned recommended me and a couple of other swimmers. Zac interviewed a few of us, showed his preliminary work to his class and professor and they all said “forget about the other swimmers. Focus on Julie’s story.” He did. His short documentary BREATHE, is about the intersection of my double swim around Manhattan Island and my bipolar disorder. He submitted the doc to several festivals, we got showings at many of them, including the prestigious ReelAbilities Film Festival. At our last festival, The Greenwich Village Film Festival, we won Best Short Documentary. Zac was a wonderful director, cameraman, editor and producer. He completed the entire movie during the pandemic. I’m very impressed with the work he did culling together our interviews, still photos and archival footage. It’s been an honor attending talk backs to represent the film. 

Guy: Can you tell us about the organization you founded, the Frank Ridge Foundation? What its mission is, why you decided to start it, and about some the foundation’s projects?  

Julie: Ah, the subject nearest and dearest to my heart. Thanks for asking. Frank Ridge is my dad – one of the kindest and most loving dads a girl can be fortunate enough to have. Dad died in 2013 after 90 full years, rich with adventure, and community involvement. Pops supported everything I ever did, unquestioningly and unconditionally. He was by my side stroke after boring stoke for all of my swims, was in Hawaii melting in the heat with me when I completed the Ironman Triathlon and rode side-by-side with me as we biked 3,700+ miles across America. Dad was also a pretty smart businessman, and he left me and my sisters some money. I’ve never had much money – I chose lucrative fields like acting, writing and social work – so what he left felt like a fortune. I took almost half of my inheritance and founded a non-profit in his honor, the Frank Ridge Memorial Foundation, Inc. (frankridgememorialfoundation.org), dedicated to living well with mental health conditions through awareness and understanding. Our primary work is:  

• Creating and facilitating resource-rich topical seminars, using accurate compassionate movies as the springboard for conversation, for community members and mental health practitioners required NY continuing education.  

• Maintaining our resource-rich website. 

• Providing meaningful part-time employment for individuals living well with mental health conditions.  

• And performing Bipolar & The English Channel whenever the opportunity arises. 

I’ve loved working for myself running this organization for the past 12 years and hope to keep on for as long as I am able! 

BREATHE TRAILER: 

VIEW THE FILM HERE: 

https://www.docnyc.net/film/doc-nyc-u-life-in-the-big-apple/breathe/

It is one thing to read about bipolar disorder in a textbook, and another thing to observe it firsthand. Some of us have friends or family members whom we have seen in the throes of a manic episode. As a psychiatrist, I have witnessed mania at close range literally hundreds of times. But to be an audience member and to experience it in a way that manages to be both educational and entertaining is a rare privilege. And to do so as a multimedia event, fusing theater with visual arts, is surely unique.  

Sam Kissajukian’s one-man show 300 Paintings is a must-see that is currently enjoying a return engagement at the Vineyard Theatre in New York. (It is purely a coincidence that the theater, just off Union Square, is a block away from my former psychiatric office of eighteen years.)  

Kissajukian is an Australian stand-up comic. In 2021, during the pandemic, he experienced a five-month bipolar manic episode. During that time, despite having no previous background in visual arts, he decided to become a painter. Moving into a warehouse, he began to paint. He barely slept, frequently turning out multiple works a day. By the end of the episode he had created three hundred paintings, documenting his mental state.  

Kinssajukian has created the show he calls 300 Paintings as the culmination of his personal and artistic journey. The show has won numerous awards, including Best Comedy at Sydney Fringe 2022 and 2023, and the Mental Health Awareness Award at Adelaide Fringe 2024. It has played at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and it first came to the Vineyard last fall. He has also had several exhibitions of his paintings, and has come out as a strong advocate for mental health awareness. 

While 300 Paintings calls on the author’s experience as a comic, it is no mere stand-up routine. At 80 minutes it has the dimension and scope of a play. There are serious undertones, yet there are many undoubtedly funny parts: We hear how at his most grandiose Kinssajukian thinks of himself as a “Pisscasso” who goes through a blue period in days, rather than years. At another point he describes how he affected a beret. Funny or serious, he is always charming and engaging, and he breaks it up by showing projections of his work.  

There are times when the dialogue takes on the rapid, pressured speech of a person who is manic, and his thought process shows the jumping from topic to topic that a psychiatrist refers to as “flight of ideas,” But this feels intentional. At no time do you worry that the performer does not have it under control. And he readily attributes this to his rapid diagnosis and treatment by a psychiatrist.  

At the end of the performance, Kissajukian announces that a curated exhibition of his paintings is on view in the lobby, and that he will be available to meet the audience.  

Two Paintings by Kissajukian

Podcast

Web image provided by Sam Kissajukian