Who is Alan Wilbar, Poet

Alan Wilbar is performing as the character Drosselmeyer with the Northeastern Ballet company in their holiday production of The Nutcracker.

Portsmouth NH radio station WSCA 106FM presented a live broadcast of The Learning Man - edited version, on August 11, 2010.

The host of the show offered this review of The Learning Man, and Alan Wilbar"

"Alan Wilbar is a totally unselfish and gifted man who has written "The Learning Man" in order to share his story of TBI with those who also experience this disability, but just as importantly, with those who have not.

His effort to educate and build empathy about TBI within the entire community is worthy of the highest praise and recognition.

Thank You, Alan, and God Bless You! - J.Lovering , Host of Audio Theatre - Portsmouth Community Radio - WSCA-LP 106.1 FM."

For an archived recording of the program, visit this link ... WSCA Archives -10 August 2010

Alan Wilbar's play, The Learning Man

(Review by David Cote, Ph.D.)

It may be said that each soul has it's own narrative, that most tales remain unuttered as time unfolds. It is probably also true that most often humanity lives and dies unwept, unhonoured and unsung. And yet there are those among us who are driven, compelled to disclose their traumas and terrors, adventures and experiences, elations and depressions, struggles and victories, losses and tribulations. This is certainly the situation with the bio-history elegantly recorded in poetry, song and narrative frankness in the dramatic presentation of Alan Wilbar's The Learning Man.

Alan has the lyric gift, the acumen and honesty to reveal without self-pity or deprecation, the extraordinary journey he has traveled for the past twenty years or so. What he has experienced certainly has been bizarre; yet he sings his years with the patience and grace of the troubadour within his soul.

Thus, the story begins: On an early autumn night while down-rigging an enormous circus tent(after a sold out performance by Kenny Rogers), Alan fell 47feet, crashing through a metal grid, head and body eventually slamming onto a wooden ramp that luckily had not been removed. Otherwise he would have hit the concrete walkway underneath. But it is not the accident which should be of concern; rather it's aftermath and Alan's subsequent stages of recovery and his coping with them during his journey back to living. The immediate results were devastating, daunting, almost beyond belief. The long-term experiences surely more so! Instantly, as he recalls, "Among other injuries I experienced%u2026massive porietal frontal lobe damage" Only later was he to face the concomitant life-long damage of," hypoglycemia, chronic pain, enhanced bi-polar disorder, and PTSD"

His reaction, in his own words, to these conditions," I can take my pick as to why I feel shitty today"

But, above all, The Learning Man's focus must be recognized as narrative and recovery from severe/traumatic brain injury which entails a starting over, a re-discovery of self, a psychic rebirth, if you will, for as Alan states, "To truly have your life, you must die first. It is the only way." Indeed, it seems to be literally true that mind and body in recovery from brain damage must learn, relearn, recognize and deal with both it's losses and rediscoveries. The process is arduous, slow, decades long:

"You were getting your master's(degree)

I was remastering the spoon"

"I can now grasp about a week at a time,

twenty years after my fall"

"As my brain recovers bits of former thought,

feeling and judgment come creeping in"

"Continually found myself at a million different

stages of emotional growth all at once"

" My chronological growth had been compacted%u2026

At 24,comma, on 25 Sep88, comma, I fell 47' and landed on

my head, period. At 24, on Sept 26, I was age zero, coma."

Alan's recovery seems to be encapsulated in his hope that when doctors "began to put my head and body back together[they would be able to do so] on the same page, or at least in the same volume." Ultimately, in recovery, his spirit triumphs over the long years of gradual yet persistent rehabilitation. He remarks:

"I'm finally able to give up the war as a disorder

and now just try to keep it a distraction"

At last he is able to come to terms with the fact that he is, "a brain injured and broken human" who constantly what he identifies as his "present traumatic stress disorder." The effects are massive and permanent:

" PTSD infects your complete being, how you look at

the world, how you rate people and situations, and kind of

takes the taste out of food sometimes"

But when all is said and done squibs of wisdom force us to concur:

"Should be reason to conjugate be. There can be dancing,

should be laughter, all it takes is the eyes to see, 'cause it's

a self-service life and you may sit where you would like"

What he is saying is that choice always is individual, personal. And we are all learning man; the learning, moreover, always is now . Or, as Alan puts it, "Wisdom tells to live in the noun and not the verb." That is, to be - "I, you, he, she, us " - living, being in the present, not existing in an activity, And so, wisely he enunciates:

" Once you stop letting your disability command and control

you, you get more choices than you ever thought possible"

And again:

"This I finally know: It's about the ocean of together, not

the mountain of alone"

For indeed, we are all in this together, and improvement, adaption, change and the courage to grow clearly are what life is all about.

Lastly, The Learning Man, like all good theatre, is meant to be seen and heard, experienced, not talked about; the play really is the thing! Thus, I would suggest that The Learning Man, in performance and presentation, will prove an illumination, possibly even an epiphany.

David "Doc" Cote

Follow and Friend Alan Wilbar on Facebook

Alan Wilbar is a seasoned acting professional with extensive stage experience and technical theater credits. He started his performance career at the age of 9 on the stage as a dancer and actor.

As a child stage performer, Alan appeared in numerous Merrimack Valley Theatre Company productions including Jesus Christ Superstar, Peter Pan, and The Music Man at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, NH (where he was a member of the same performing arts group as Adam Sandler) and studied with the Boston Ballet, appearing in The Nutcracker for three seasons.

Alan and his family credit the superb care provided by the trauma team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston for saving his life and preventing further damage to his brain and body. He is also very grateful to the Med-Evac pilot who brought him directly to the facility from South Shore Music Circus.

Alan's "thunder wall" includes hundreds of pieces of memorabilia from his performances going back to 1972, including performance signs, posters, programs, flyers, playbills, newspaper articles and venue show cards.

The drain inserted near Alan's hairline helped keep fluid from building on his brain. In this photo, Alan was in a coma where he remained for 13 days. September 1988

• It's a Wonderful Life - Radio Play
• T-Bone and Weasel - Molasses Tank Productions-The Threshold Theater, Boston, MA(June 1 - July 1, 2000)
• Yellow Taxi Poetry
• Poetry Corner
• New England Culture Fest
• OK Cabaret - Amesbury, MA
• WinterTide Coffeehouse (The Dark Side) - Martha's Vineyard
• Open Mind Coffeehouse - Rockport, MA
• Bridge Cafe - Manchester, NH
• Wide Awake Coffee House - Gloucester, MA
• Stone Soup Poetry - Cambridge, MA

From 1999 through mid-2001, Alan appeared in stage and road productions in Boston and Massachusetts' North Shore as well as poetry events and festivals throughout New England.

In fall 2001, Alan began NH location taping of an original feature about WWII titled, "Remember ..." with his long time friend, David Maheu.

Alan appeared in television commercials for John Hancock Insurance company plus appeared in stage productions in Manchester, NH at The Palace Theater and Portsmouth, NH at the Seacoast Repertory Theatre.

Alan has an extensive collection of militaria - books, uniforms, artifacts, photographs and insignia - and serves as a technical military consultant for stage and motion picture productions and also participates with local WWII re-enactors in parades and encampments throughout the Northeastern USA.

Alan Wilbar appeared as "Doctor Drosselmeyer" in the 2009 production of "The Nutcracker" by Edra Toth's Northeastern Ballet Theatre. The ballet troupe is traveling to the cities of Farmington, at Farmington Opera House, Wolfeboro, at Kingswood regional High School, and Dover, at The Portsmouth Christian Academy.

Alan's work with Edra picks up after 34 years. He initially studied with and appeared in "The Nutcracker"at The Boston Ballet, as a child, while Edra was one of the prima ballerinas. Edra was a ballerina partnered with notable dancers of the day, including Edward Villela and Rudolf Nureyev, as well as performing for President Lyndon Johnson at age 16.

Alan owns an extensive collection of militaria including books, uniforms, artifacts, photographs and insignia.He is a lifelong student of 20th century military history and serves as a technical military consultant for stage and motion picture productions.

Alan participates in costume and in character with local WWII and Viet Nam War re-enactors in parades, educational events and encampments throughout the Northeastern USA.

The Krempels Center was founded in 1995 by David Krempels, who, after surviving a traumatic car accident resulting in a brain injury, invested his time and money to support other brain injury survivors and their families. The organization's programs and mission began expanding in 2000 to better meet the post-rehabilitation needs of people living with brain injury.

Today, the Krempels Center has built a reputation for offering quality programs and services that contribute to new life after brain injury.