Adriane Leigh Robinson and Marco Alberto Robinson in Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors. Photo by Amanda Tipton Photography

On the 150^th performance of Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, a note was delivered to the cast. It said, “As a psychotherapist, I have sent 45 people to see your show with a simple set of instructions: find presence, find joy, and notice if any new ideas or possibilities open up.”

At Dracula.

Not at a deeply thought-provoking musical like Next to Normal, which was playing just down the galleria. Not at what some might consider a “serious” production like Madama Butterfly.

But at a comedy. About a vampire.

Even more surprising were the results of those individuals who came to the show:

• All 45 felt present in the space. All 45 felt joy.
• 16 had the idea to bring others back and have since returned.
• 10 signed up for improv classes at local Denver theaters after struggling to find something to feel excited about.
• 4 started going to the gym. (Shoutout to actors Marco Alberto Robinson and Sean Scrutchins!)
• 2 couples had their first night out together since their babies were born.
• 3 women realized that aging does not mean they have to stop participating in life. (Shoutout to actress Leslie O’Carroll!)
• 1 person had their first night out since getting sober a year ago and experienced zero cravings because, in their words, “laughing felt better than drunk.”

Leaning into a stereotype about actors and egos, I contacted the letter’s author. I wanted more, which may say more about me than any actor.

Britt Mahrer, MA, LPC, Somatic Psychotherapist

That’s when I met Britt Mahrer, Somatic Psychotherapist, Berkley-trained pianist, and yogic monk. Yep, you read that right.

Meeting Britt Mahrer is a little like making a best friend. Much like the orders prescribed to her patients, she exudes joy, remains steadfastly present in the moment, and only wants to lift you up. Pretty heady stuff, pardon the pun.

“I went to school to be a composer,” Mahrer explained when I asked how she connected psychotherapy to the arts. “88 keys, 10 fingers, four years, and in the final month, I hit a crisis where I realized that everything had been about me and this piano. I wasn’t connected to anything outside of me, and I was miserable.”

That realization was a wakeup call that her life was lacking meaningful connection. So, she started making music with terminally ill children where she and her partners would translate their ideas, stories, and experiences into beautiful music. It was then that she realized “the happiest creatures I’ve ever seen are dying children and the saddest creatures I’ve ever seen are middle class white people. I got very confused.”

Which led her back to school and, ultimately, into practice as a psychotherapist, which she describes as “a mental health provider that works with people who are seeking to feel good enough not to feel bad or who want to feel better than good.”

Using her hands, she describes what she calls the “container,” two hands bracketed around a rectangle of air the size of a brick. In her observation, once individuals think of their lives as a container, “something changes in your brain and you start to go, ‘Wow. Okay, so if I’ve got this, how am I going to fill it?’”

Suddenly life has meaning and individuals have agency over how to fill their container.

Once they discover offers meaning, it, “can be turned up, and it can be more and more important, and it can matter. And that’s what theater has been for me in my life. It has been my own mental health, so being able to give it to other people? How could I not?” — Britt Mahrer

Britt’s personal experience and that of her patients mirrors recent studies about the positive impact of theatre on mental health and overall wellbeing. In Introductory Guide to Research Regarding Flourishing Through the Arts, Shannon Robinson cites Your Brain on Art in which Nisha Sajnani, director of the Drama Therapy Program and the Theatre and Health Lab at New York University, says, “Like drawing, theatre can be an extremely important avenue for stress reduction and dealing with trauma and acute anxiety-related conditions.”

But the health benefits of theatre are not for the audience alone. “We don’t think about it, right?” Mahrer said, “We don’t think about the fact that our performers are going through things. They’re great at pretending like they’re not. They’re actors, right?”

But actors are very human. Her friend Marco Alberto Robinson, who plays Count Dracula, is a recovering alcoholic who has filled his container with marriage (to co-star Adriane Leigh Robinson) and acting, leading to an explosive career trajectory. He’s gone from roles in the DCPA’s Theatre for Young Audiences production of Goodnight Moon to appearing in mainstage Denver Center Theatre Company productions to starring in DCPA Cabaret’s six-month run of Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors. “Marco understands when I talk about the connection of purpose and meaning. He gets it,” Mahrer said.

And “it” is presence, joy, and a chemical reaction that makes audiences feel good — about the experience, about themselves, about those around them with whom they have a collective experience.

“Try to create art and not be present,” said Mahrer. “When I’m sitting down to write a song, where am I? I’m nowhere but there in that song. I used to think that this could only happen in art and then I saw my husband with an Excel document. That’s his art.”

“If we create presence, we’re saying to your brain, ‘Now we’re here. I know you want to touch your phone. I know you want to think about the thing you’re going to do after the show, where you’re parking, or this or that.’ No. It’s that on the stage. You are here.” — Britt Mahrer

The role that art can play in behavioral or emotional change is powerful. According to Americans for the Arts, nearly 80% of hospital administrators say they invest in the arts because they dramatically improve the patient experience. More than 50% of hospitals have arts programming and report shorter patient stays, decreased symptoms, and reduced anxiety.

Additionally, studies beginning with Roger Ulrich’s landmark 1984 research in Science found that post‑surgical patients who could see nature from their room recovered nearly a day faster, required fewer pain medications, and were discharged sooner than patients without such views. Applied to current U.S. hospital per‑diem costs, this reduction in length of stay is often estimated to save approximately $2,300 per patient day.

The overall impact of the arts on your wellbeing is considerable. One of Mahrer’s patients said laughing felt better than being drunk. She explained: “It’s called a ‘dose.’ Four chemicals — dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. We love getting a dose. When you drink alcohol, you’re taking something that’s going to mute you.… It turns down the dial on your feelings.” But if you keep turning down that dial and not filling up your container with something meaningful, “you can turn down the anxiety and feel misery.”

“What you actually want is that dose. We create dose chemicals in a multitude of different ways, but if we really want to get a good hit of them all together, we want to feel like we’re part of something bigger to create purpose, meaning, serotonin, and endorphins. Being connected to bigger meaning is really the cure for mental health.” — Britt Mahrer

So your prescription is: Go to a show. Turn off your phone. Be present and see if you leave feeling any different. “Your joy starts the moment you want it to. It does not have to be constant. We’ve lost the understanding that joy can be cultivated. We think it’s ‘over there’ if we can just get to it. So, bring it in, cultivate it and allow it to have a relationship with you.”

Joy, presence, connection to a bigger meaning. They are all right here — in a theatre, in the dark, alongside strangers, and the show’s about to begin.

The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) NewsCenter is the organization’s editorial platform for stories, announcements, interviews, and coverage of theatre and cultural programming in Colorado. We are committed to producing accurate, trustworthy, clearly sourced journalism that reflects our mission and serves our community.