St. Paul play partners to advocate for organ donation

NINA MOINI: A play exploring the process of organ donation is opening at the Historic Mounds Theater in St. Paul on Friday. The Tin Woman is being produced by 100% Human Theatre and explores themes of heartbreak, closure, and unanswered questions. Joy Donley, the director of The Tin Woman, is on the line with me. Thanks for being here, Joy.

JOY DONLEY: Hi, Nina. Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: And 100% Human Theatre is partnering with LifeSource, which is an organization in the Midwest that helps connect donors with recipients. And Susan Mau Larson is the chief administrative officer of LifeSource, who also joins us. Thank you so much, Susan.

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Well, Joy, I'll start with you. Could you give us a summary of what the play is about?

JOY DONLEY: Sure. The Tin Woman is about a young woman who receives a heart transplant, and she ends up having an opportunity to find out more about her heart donor, who was a young man, about the same age as she is. And she gets to meet the family, which includes his mother, his father, and his sister. And they all sort of have different reactions to her and to their memory of their loved one.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

JOY DONLEY: And so this all plays out to be able to see all of those feelings, feelings of grief, regret. But also, feelings of joy and happiness and connection and relationships build from there.

NINA MOINI: Wow, that sounds really powerful, Joy. And Susan, can you share a little bit more about what LifeSource does, for those who aren't familiar?

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Absolutely. LifeSource, you can think of us as the people behind the heart on your driver's license. So we are privileged to be able to facilitate the organ donation process in the upper Midwest-- so North and South Dakota and Minnesota.

And what that means is that when there's a potential donor, LifeSource is the organization that works with the family, supports the grieving family, and honors the person's decision to be a donor by facilitating the entire donation process to be sure that their gifts of organ and tissue donation are received by those in need.

NINA MOINI: I love the way that you all have merged resources and information with art. It seems like a really creative way to get messages and stories across. Joy, I know your family actually has a personal story about organ donation. Would you want to share a little bit about it?

JOY DONLEY: Yes, this is how we came to be connected, really, with LifeSource, because 8 and 1/2 years ago, my 16-year-old son Lewis died by suicide. And he had been-- of course, at that time, at his age, was taking driver's ed, but never got his driver's license. And so when he passed away, we had to make the decision for him to donate his tissues and eyes. And we did that through LifeSource.

And then these many years later, I came across this play that had the theme of organ donation. And so I contacted LifeSource through my donor family advocate and just asked, have you ever used theater as a way to get the message out about organ donation? And they said that they hadn't. And so that kind of started this ball rolling of, well, what can we do about that? And how can we make this work?

NINA MOINI: And so you have actually connected with people who have a connection to your son.

JOY DONLEY: Yes. Actually, we received, about three years after Lewis died-- we got a letter in the mail from one of the donor recipients, who was a young man about Lewis's age. He was 17 years old, in high school. And he was a basketball player. And he had to have knee surgery for a torn ACL. It turns out he received Lewis's tissue to repair his knee.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

JOY DONLEY: And so in his letter, he told us that he went on to-- he and his team won their high school district basketball championship. [LAUGHS]

NINA MOINI: Aw. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And Susan, in your work with LifeSource, do you find that it's common for people to want to meet recipients of organs from their loved ones? I'm sure there are a lot of-- again, like with the play, complicated emotions. But is that common? And then how do you facilitate that?

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Yeah, that's a great question. It's not as common as you might think, but I think many families like Joy's, who have been just so generous and gracious in helping others, they really want to know more about their loved one's legacy. And at the same time, many transplant recipients just simply want to say thank you for this life-saving gift that they received.

So we have donor family advocates, as Joy mentioned, and they provide ongoing support to families, whether it be through events or the opportunities to honor their loved one. They also provide opportunities for transplant recipients and donor families to connect, first through writing, which is generally anonymous, and then if they want to meet, our advocates help to facilitate that process as well.

NINA MOINI: All right. And, Joy, I'm sure that with opening night coming up Friday, that it is bringing up some emotions for you. How are you feeling this week?

JOY DONLEY: That is really true, Nina. In just rehearsing this show, there are moments throughout that really hit hard for me. And of course, as the actors get better and better performing their roles, it just starts to be [CHUCKLES] even more deep feelings in watching the show. But I'm just so happy to be able to tell this story. I just think it's really an important story to tell, and also, just to be able to dispel any myths that are out there about organ donation.

NINA MOINI: And Susan--

JOY DONLEY: That's what I hope for.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. Susan, I'm trying to understand the need when it comes to organ donation. How is the country or how is Minnesota or the Midwest-- like, what is the need? And what do you hope people understand about that?

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Yes. Well, in the country, there are more than 100,000 people waiting for a life-saving organ transplant.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Yep. In Minnesota, it's--

NINA MOINI: Oh. Did we lose Susan? Oh, I think we lost Susan.

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Slightly more--

NINA MOINI: Oh.

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Yeah, I'm sorry.

NINA MOINI: Oh, you're back. That's OK. [LAUGHS]

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Thank you, yeah. Slightly more than half of Minnesotans have registered to be donors, which is absolutely fantastic. But we really need more people to say yes to donation. Donations are a rare and precious gift.

And if you haven't experienced it like Joy has, you really don't understand it. But through art, through theater, as Joy is bringing to us, we really believe that more people will understand how precious and important these gifts are and take the time to say yes to donation.

NINA MOINI: And Joy, what do you hope that people take away from the play?

JOY DONLEY: Well, I hope that for one, the audience sees themselves in these characters, because they all kind of take a different path. And I hope that the audience sees that. And then I hope that we are able to gather many, many more people to register to become organ donors during the run of this show and even past. We're really trying to engage as many people as we can.

One thing I talked about with LifeSource, when we were planning for this show, was asking them, what's the demographic that you're trying to reach the most at this time? And they said, age 24 and under and men.

And so one of the things that we're doing along with the show is we have a little add-on event on Friday nights after the show. We're having a live quiz game after the show that is free, everybody can stay for. It's a custom quiz game, kind of a trivia sort of thing. And we're hoping that that will capture the attention of younger people. And I have known times that I've gone trivia game playing, I've seen a lot of men in there. So we're hoping to connect with them.

And then on Saturday nights, we're bringing Life Source in to talk at a Q&A after the Saturday evening shows, so that they can give a little information to our audiences there.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. What a great teaming up. And just thank you so much for stopping by, Susan and Joy, and telling us all about this. Good luck, and congratulations.

JOY DONLEY: Thank you.

SUSAN MAU LARSON: Thank you so much. Thanks for having us.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. That was The Tin Woman director Joy Donley and Life Source chief administrative officer, Susan Mau Larson. Again, The Tin Woman will be at the Historic Mounds Theater the next two weekends.