Tracee Ellis Ross Highlights Mental Health Awareness

Tracee Ellis Ross is making her long-awaited Broadway debut with a powerful message: no one should have to face mental health challenges alone.

The actress stars in Every Brilliant Thing, a deeply emotional and uplifting play that follows an unnamed narrator who begins creating a list of all the things that make life worth living after witnessing their mother’s battle with depression. Through humor, vulnerability, and hope, the production explores the realities of mental health while reminding audiences that joy can still be found even during life’s darkest moments.

Ross says one of her biggest goals is to help break the stigma surrounding mental health.

“Mental health is something that can be so isolating and can have so much misunderstanding about what it is and what it looks like,” Ross shared, highlighting how many people suffer in silence because they feel misunderstood or alone.

For her Broadway interpretation, Ross chose to tell the story through the perspective of a Black woman, weaving in Black cultural experiences and references that make the production even more relatable for many audiences. Her approach brings fresh authenticity to the play while opening the door for important conversations within communities where mental health has often been overlooked or stigmatized.

Ross hopes theatergoers walk away knowing that asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. She believes that while everyone experiences hardship, healing is possible when people have support and are willing to seek it.

Every Brilliant Thing serves as a reminder that even in life’s most difficult moments, there are still reasons to hold on to hope—and that no one has to navigate their mental health journey by themselves.