Megan Timpane is using humor to unlock raw vulnerability and humanitarian connection.

UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television alumnus Timpane was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma a year after her graduation. She said her experience inspired her to write a one-woman darkly comedic play detailing her journey with her cancer and its treatment. Now, coinciding with the 10-year anniversary of her remission, she has renewed her production for several performances, including at the Broadwater on April 25 and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer. “Lymphomaniac,” Timpane said, blends her experience with cancer and survival with comedy and impressions that allow the audience to connect on a deeper emotional level.

“When you display your own vulnerability, it invites everybody else to do the same around you,” Timpane said.

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Since childhood, Timpane has been singing, acting and dancing at every possible opportunity, she said. In particular, she said she took an interest in impersonations, a skill that is demonstrated in “Lymphomaniac.” A fundamental aspect of Timpane’s play is her ability to blend humor with emotion, which is a quality she said comes naturally to her.

“Humor was always my default and has always been how I handle difficult situations,” Timpane said.

During her time at UCLA, Timpane enjoyed the well-rounded curriculum of TFT and said it was an eclectic place. She and her peers were exposed to many kinds of theater, Timpane said, training in various specialties such as Tai Chi, ballet and Shakespeare. She said this well-roundedness made her a better actor. Timpane added that the cohort provided her with lifelong friends who supported her throughout her treatment and beyond.

The summer before her senior year at UCLA, Timpane attended the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England, where she studied theater. There, she said, she experienced her first symptoms of lymphoma without knowing it. Before the program’s initial auditions, she fainted and got a black eye, requiring her to improvise Lady Macbeth’s monologue from Shakespeare’s “The Tragedie of Macbeth” because the impact caused her to forget the original, she said.

About a year after she graduated, Timpane was diagnosed with lymphoma, and she said her emerging career as an actress had to be put on hold. To cope with her diagnosis, Timpane said she began journaling about things she was grateful for every day. With time, she would acknowledge smaller daily joys, such as interactions with impactful and memorable people, she said. These documented descriptions of everyday personalities became the characters she represents and impersonates in “Lymphomaniac,” she added.

“When you’re in hospitals, you’re basically just a number,” Timpane said. “But these people, their characters and their unique personalities just brighten my day.”

Timpane said she wrote the first iteration of her play during her treatment and performed it shortly after her remission. This initial version, she said, neatly packaged her story of surviving cancer with support and humor, but now she explores the non-linear healing process during the decade following her remission. This current script addresses invisible illnesses such as anxiety disorder, an eating disorder and PTSD, which she said she carries to this day. While the recency of the play’s subject matter renders it more difficult and vulnerable to perform, this authenticity is integral to her story’s resonance with the audience, Timpane said.

“I was so afraid to say these things out loud because it’s so vulnerable, and it felt so raw to say these things on stage,” Timpane said.

Timpane demonstrated this vulnerability at San Francisco’s Gregangelo Museum last December, where owner Gregangelo Herrera said he observed its impact on the audience. With “Lymphomaniac,” he said Timpane was able to connect with every person in the crowd. He said she opened up raw, vulnerable conversations through humor and united people through the human need for well-being.

“It’s a show that’s really about inclusivity,” Herrera said. “It’s a mirror of what’s in everybody. It’s very humanitarian. Sharing laughter through grief is very humanitarian.”

Through sharing her story onstage and beyond, Timpane said she has also connected with other cancer survivors. Megan Metcalfe, who worked for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, saw the play’s recent revival. Even though some of their experiences with cancer diverged, Metcalfe said seeing the show made her realize how many similar experiences the two had. She added that Timpane did a keen job of documenting, remembering and highlighting intricate details of the treatment experience. In addition, she said Timpane’s performance effectively conveyed what Metcalfe went through as a lymphoma survivor and its lingering effects.

“Megan does such a good job of portraying all of the different emotions and characters and things that you experience when you’re going through it,” Metcalfe said. “It gave him (my partner) a better sense of appreciation for, one, what I went through at the time, and two, why it still stays with me.”

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In “Lymphomaniac,” Timpane said she not only addresses the hardships of cancer and healing but does so in creative and humorous ways, such as a personified version of her anxiety, that resonate with all kinds of audience members. Healing and trauma can’t always be tied up in a bow: they leave people with simultaneous struggles and gifts, she added.

“Healing isn’t just something that ends one day,” Timpane said. “It’s not linear, and being able to give yourself grace for not being over things that have happened to you … is something that I’m continuing to work on. We all have to be able to do that for ourselves at some point in time.”