Tuesday, Nov. 15, the 31-year-old from Pottsville will be putting himself on the line in a partially autobiographical comedy called “Tuxedo Joe” at the Allen Theatre in Annville.


The piece, which began as a one-man show, is now being presented in a fleshed-out form featuring a cast of four. Sanchez wrote the two-act comedy-drama and stars as Joe, a stand-up comic on the rise until his own brain chemistry threatens to undo him.


Sanchez, who played Joe at the Allen twice before, in October 2003 and March 2004, is reviving his work in part to combat Tom Cruise’s recent negative pronouncements about psychiatry and mental health.


Cruise got a lot of air time in which to criticize established treatments of everything from postpartum depression to hyperactivity in children.


“After Mr. Cruise said psychiatry was a scam and psych medications were bad, I felt I had to stand up against the stigma he has managed to single-handedly reattach to the whole field of mental health,” Sanchez said.


“Being a pretty-boy millionaire Hollywood hunk doesn’t give you a license to perpetuate that old ‘It’s all in their heads’ stigma.”




Speaking with authority




“Tuxedo Joe” mirrors Sanchez’s own struggle with bipolar disorder. He was diagnosed in 2003 after bouts with headaches, uncontrollable crying and sleepless nights.


After initial psychiatric therapy, Sanchez said, his condition is now managed with mood stabilizers and antidepressants.


“Thanks to medical science, I got my life back,” Sanchez said after finishing a regular work day as a customer-service representative at Comcast in Lebanon.


It’s a life that includes working with the Kreider brothers (producer Bruce and director twin, Brian) on scripts for two shows they’ve produced, “Milton Hershey” and “The Prince of Cornwall” (about the life of ironmaster Robert Coleman).


Six months after graduating from Penn State University with a degree in film and video production in 1996, Sanchez tried his luck in Hollywood.


He quickly decided it wasn’t the life for him. But, while there, he had the good fortune to meet his idol, director Steven Spielberg. He was inspired by that meeting to continue to write and market screenplays.


He explains that the wacky and funny character Joey Tucci in “Tuxedo Joe” is not a medical lecturer. Sanchez personalizes the show based on the journals he kept during the acute phase of his own illness, using the technique of “breaking the fourth wall” to talk directly to his audience.




Endorsed by experts




“Mike shows his audiences that something like bipolar (disorder) interrupts life, but it doesn’t stop it,” said Janet R. Frick, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Lebanon. (MHAL will receive a portion of the proceeds from every ticket sold.) “We have a teen suicide-prevention program currently visiting schools. It’s important for young people to understand how a disease like bipolar is diagnosed and managed.”


“I was so relieved when I found out `bipolar’ wasn’t a death sentence,” Sanchez recalled. “I could still write. I could still act. I still have a wife and a normal life. I know from experience that, no matter what Mr. Cruise thinks, when you’re clinically depressed, you can’t make you’re clinically depressed, you can’t make it better by whistling a happy tune. You need professional help.”it better by whistling a happy tune. You need professional help.”


Sanchez’s “Tuxedo Joe” is the soul of simplicity — little scenery and no special effects.


That’s a far cry from his theatrical debut, an exercise in budget-busting ambition.


“It really all started for me in sixth grade,” Sanchez said, “during a unit on Greek mythology. We were each supposed to write a three-page script for a puppet show, and we each had a $2 budget to mount our production. But my script was 10 pages., sort of ‘Clash of the Titans,’ with puppets. I had a crew of sixth-graders ready to cry, `Union!’ and I was so far over budget, it wasn’t funny. “My teacher insisted I could only have five minutes, but I snapped my fingers at her and said: `Ten minutes and get off my set.’


“By the time we got to making the puppet sea monster, I was calling the whole thing `Apocalypse Yesterday.’ Luckily, I’m not quite that manic anymore.”


“Tuxedo Joe” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Allen Theater, 36 E. Main St. (Route 422), in Annville. All tickets are $10. Call 867-4766 or visit www.tuxedojoe.com.