Porgandiks kasvamine: kirjandusteadlase kogemuslugu eksperimentaalsest vaimse tervise projektist
Becoming a carrot: A literary scholar’s experience from a stand-up comedy writing course

Summary/Abstract: In February and March 2024, 12 ordinary people from Southern Estonia gave mostly sold-out shows of stand-up comedy about topics of mental health. Similarly to David Granirer’s program „Stand up for Mental Health“ in Canada and „Comedy on Referral“ organized by Angie Belcher in the United Kingdom, these people had dealings with mental health problems and received guidance from, in this case, the NPOs Peaasjad (Estonian biggest NPO dedicated to mental health awareness running the website Peaasi.ee) and Kinoteater (a theatre production company specializing in stand-up and other types of comedy as well as unusual one-time projects pushing the boundaries of theatre) and went on to give performances to the public. What started out as a part of the European Capital of Culture program in Tartu in 2024 with 11 performances of unguaranteed success ended up being 24 performances across the country with sold-out shows and exceedingly positive feedback. This article takes the form of autoethnography, describes the experience from the point of view of one of the participants, a literary scholar and certified peer counsellor, and analyses the reasons behind the project’s success both as an experience for the participants and the audience as well as an unlikely form of therapy. Out of 106 applicants 47 were invited to an interview and 24 asked to join the project, which started in autumn 2023 with a mental health training course taught by Peaasi.ee instructor Teili Toms. The course consisted of a two-day-long active participation in lectures about first aid for mental health problems, covering topics from stress, trauma and depression to anxiety and addiction. This was followed by a series of shorter webinars that covered mindfulness, skills of emotion regulation and crisis tolerance. Starting out with an evidence-based and compassionate overview of mental health problems, solutions and skills gave the overall project a very good basis and set the tone for how the participants approached mental health for the duration of the project. After the crash course in mental health came the focus of the project – a 5-week long comedy writing training that consisted of short weekly webinars discussing previous weeks’ assignments, introducing a new topic or tool for writing and answering questions led by Kinoteater’s Paul Piik, and individual work in pairs with an assigned mentor from Kinoteater. Each week the two paired participants had 10 writing assignments divided over 5 days with an estimated writing time that required 30 minutes per day. The assignments ranged from finding positive and negative aspects of 10 random things, or mind-mapping two different concepts and trying to find funny or unexpected connections between them to thinking of ways to exaggerate something going on in your life based on the 7 deadly sins. The mentor gave encouragement and feedback to both participants, sometimes suggesting ways to frame or progress your jokes. Writing with partners made the whole process less stressful and more fun and made it easier to try out different things to make the two readers react or comment. The last assignment (for week 5) was to write a 5-minute routine of about 1 A4 worth of text drawing from all the assignments and topics covered during the course. After rehearsing the routine for some one-on-one feedback from the mentor on a video call, participants performed their routines for all the three mentors in the project and their partner in a private performance that later turned out to be the exam for the writing course. During the writing course the organizers never mentioned performances to keep the anxiety of the participants down, but a day after the last exams many of the participants received invitations from Sandra Liiv, the project manager of Peaasi.ee, to perform their comedy routines in Southern Estonia on 11 dates. After rehearsals first in smaller groups of 3-4 people, and then everyone together, 12 participants performed two trial runs in front of family and friends. The 6th of February 2024 at the Genialistide Klubi in Tartu was the very first performance of „Mental Health Is Like a Carrot“ and true to the title, each participant had a joke about why mental health is like a carrot, one of the early assignments from the writing course. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and venues kept getting sold out, so an extra performance was added on the last day of the initially planned performances. A Facebook Messenger chat created before the rehearsals to help with mostly logistical arrangements became an active haven for shared support and comedy and helped cement the common identity of the participants as The Carrots. After the success (positive feedback and ticket sales) of spring performances, extra performances were added for late autumn 2024 in Southern Estonia including the large hall of Theatre Vanemuine in Tartu housing 650 seats. After the end of European Capital of Culture program restrictions, in early 2025 another 5 performances were scheduled in Northern Estonia. An additional rehearsal period was added before the autumn performances and some of the routines changed significantly including one complete routine rewrite. The very last performances of „Mental Health Is Like a Carrot“ took place in Saaremaa in Western Estonia in the summer of 2025 and included 8 of the performers of the original show as well as one of the mentors of the writing course, actor Henrik Kalmet, replacing Sandra as the MC. Reasons for the success of the project include the topic of mental health attuning both the participants and the audience to serious topics and vulnerability; the organizers and the participants taking each other’s well-being very seriously, leading to a family-like rapport between the organizers and the participants. That affection and the success of the project owed much to the personalities, attitudes and actions of the organizers, and to the therapeutic effect of the project due to encompassing beneficial aspects of humour, writing therapy, group therapy, and peer counselling. The final essential component for the success of the project was the audience – their willingness to approach mental health topics in unusual ways, to listen to ordinary Estonians talk honestly – if a bit clumsily – about their struggles with mental health. „Mental Health Is Like a Carrot“ offered a variety of different stories for different tastes in humour, which helped facilitate positive reactions from the audience. In summary, Peaasi.ee and Kinoteater’s „Mental Health is Like a Carrot“ was a well-thought-out project led by attentive and sensitive professionals, that happened to find the right time in Estonian society to talk unconventionally about mental health problems. The reciprocal respect and sincere enthusiasm of both the participants and the organizers made possible the creation of honest, but still funny routines that received a warm welcome from the audience. That warm welcome encouraged the participants to be even more open on stage. All three parties – the organizers, the participants and the audience – significantly contributed to the success of the project, as well as the trust and affection in the group.

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