Writer uses diagnosis to inspire others
Shareta Jo Rogers is the creator of “This is What Lupus Looks Like” Parts 1 and 2. Th production features the stories of Lupus survivors and seeks to inspire those diagnosed with Lupus to continue to fight. Photo provided by Shareta Jo Rogers.
After a few months, Shareeta went back and read what she wrote. She decided to turn it into a stage play. The result was a show, “This is What Lupus Looks Like Part 1.”
The show, “This is What Lupus Looks Like Part 2,” will take place at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 10th, at Nathan Manilow Theatre, located at 410 Lakewood Blvd., in Park Forest, Ill.
Shareeta wanted the stage play to be authentic, so she reached out to different Lupus organizations. She wanted real Lupus survivors because she wanted to bring awareness to the disease and the people who have it. She also wanted to be a connection for a support group and a platform for the people in the production to talk about what they have gone through.
Every scene tells a story, using different forms of art including comedy, dance, modeling, acting, singing and poetry. “Through those arts we are telling a story and bringing awareness to the community,” Shareeta said. “I wanted to put together a family, a sisterhood, a brotherhood, where we can all rely on each other.”
“This is What Lupus Looks Like Part 1” debuted May 2016. Two years later, in October 2018, she mounted the same production, but included cancer survivors.
Sherie Withers-Banks is one of the performers in the show. She wanted to be part of the show because she wanted to meet other Lupus survivors. She thought the show was an interesting way to tell the stories of Lupus survivors, using theatre. Withers-Banks performs as a Whitney Houston impersonator.
“We were able to tell our stories and I was able to meet other people who were going through the same things I was going through,” she said, describing the show as a theatrical support group.
Withers-Bank called Shareeta an amazing director. She feels there isn’t enough out there that depicts Lupus and what people who are diagnosed with it go through. She said she loves how Shareeta is giving people a platform as way to tell their stories.
For Part 2, Shareeta has included more based on what she has gone through with Lupus. The storyline is deeper than the first one, because of her sickness and what she has experienced with it. Shareeta has started a Lupus charity, Lupie Girl Outreach Group.
“By me having to go through a lot of sickness since I wrote the first story and different feelings. This one is more faith-based. I have more faith in more of a higher belief. This one is more about conquering Lupus, the first one was more about let me show you what we go through,” Shareeta said, adding the second production is about fighting and having hope.
There is a warrior scene in the second production with the theme that she and other people who have Lupus will not be defeated. She said there is more power in the second production.
Shareeta hopes people who see the production walk away with hope and the will to keep fighting. “The whole goal is to offer hope, to offer faith that no matter what these diseases throw at you, to fight it. To fight it until you have nothing left. Keep fighting,” she said.
For more information about “This is What Lupus Looks Like Part 2” and Lupie Girl Outreach Group, visit lupiegirloutreach.org.
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