Is she insane — or just pretending?
10 Days in a Madhouse follows trailblazing journalist Nellie Bly as she fakes madness to be admitted to Blackwell’s Asylum in 1887. Her goal: to uncover the truth about life inside. What she finds instead is a world built to break women — where grief, poverty, and trauma are mistaken for insanity, and where doctors decide who is sane enough to be heard.
Once inside, Nellie quickly drops her “mad act.” But no one notices. Surrounded by women who have been silenced and dismissed, she witnesses the violence of indifference — and begins to question how thin the line between sanity and madness really is.
Based on Bly’s groundbreaking exposé, this gripping psychological opera exposes the biases that shaped women’s mental health and the systems that sought to contain them.
Composed by Rene Orth with a libretto by Hannah Moscovitch, 10 Days in a Madhouse is directed by Joanna Settle (Sky on Swings). Designer Andrew Lieberman’s set transforms the stage into a dark labyrinth — part asylum, part mindscape — pulling audiences deep into Nellie’s world.
Through striking visuals and haunting music, 10 Days in a Madhouse reimagines a true story of courage and confrontation. It asks what it means to be believed — and what happens when speaking truth sounds like madness.
