Facing breast cancer means different things to different people. That was the mission of – and the takeaway from – the production of TitBits: Breast Cancer Stories in which 8 people share how they were affected (listen below). Patients, doctors, caregivers all recount personal and emotional details of their stories. Excerpts of the production aired on WAER as an episode of Syracuse Speaks.
Syracuse University Television, Radio and Film Professor Tula Goenka started examining the perspectives of people gripped by breast cancer in her photo exhibit Look Now. It showed survivors, clothed and nude, sharing their images after treatment or mastectomy, and their stories. Goenka, a breat cancer survior herself, had patients Anju Varshney, AnnMarie Giannino-Otis, Colleen Anderson, Deirdre Bordies and Barbara Genton, along with widower Samuel Gruber who lost his wife to the disease, oncologist Sheila Lemke and breast reconstruction surgeon Anthony Diboni tell their stories. Nancy Keefe Rhodes used those interviews to create the script, interweaving the histories and thoughts.
TitBits was written by Titbits by Syracuse University Alumna Nancy Keefe Rhodes with Kyle Bass of Syracuse Stage.
TitBits is part of a larger project examining the impact of breast cancer, that includes the Look Now photo exhibit. You can find out more at LookNowProject.org.
The audio presentation here was recorded during live performances of TitBits:Breast Cancer Stories staged in November at Syracuse University’s Newhouse III.
