Theatre | July 1st, 2025
By Alicia Underlee Nelson
A new one-act play inspired by patients buried in the cemetery at the North Dakota State Hospital in Jamestown will tour festivals in Omaha, St. Louis and Indianapolis after shows at Central Lakes College in Brainerd August 1 and at Empire Arts Center in Grand Forks on August 3. North Dakota playwright Kathleen Coudle-King wrote the play, titled “There’s Something I Must Tell You,” over the course of two years, funded in part by grants from the ND Council on the Arts.
It’s inspired by stories pulled from the hospital’s files from the 1800s and early 1900s. Although the play features voices from the past, Coudle-King hopes it will provide a way for contemporary audiences to discuss mental illness.
“There’s Something I Must Tell You” takes place over the course of a single night, when a modern researcher meets the ghosts of patients from the hospital’s history. They include a veteran of The Battle of The Little Bighorn and the Civil War, immigrants traumatized by relocation, women born without agency or civil rights and individuals who struggled with paranoid delusions, schizophrenia and the profound isolation of life on the prairie.
“While the dead can’t speak, I’ve done my best to share parts of their stories because they need to be told,” Coudle-King said in a press release. "I was careful to focus on those who have been deceased for at least a century.”
Theatre Without Walls will produce the show. The August 1 evening performance at Central Lakes College Performing Arts Center in Brainerd and 2 p.m. matinee on August 3 at the Empire Arts Center in Grand Forks will serve as fundraisers to offset travel costs to the three theatre festivals.
Tickets are available at the door for a suggested donation of $15 each. The box office opens at 1 p.m. The play is not appropriate for patrons under 15. A talk-back will follow the performance.
IF YOU GO:
“There’s Something I Must Tell You”
Friday, August 1 at 7 p.m.
Central Lakes College Performing Arts Center, 501 W. College Dr., Brainerd, MN
Sunday, August 3, 2 p.m.
Empire Arts Center, 415 Demers Ave., Grand Forks
January 15th 2026
October 6th 2025
August 13th 2025
July 15th 2025
June 9th 2025
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