“What you did with your time on the earth”: interpreting well-being through the found poetry of a Broadway performer

BACKGROUND: Broadway's extraordinary commercial success rests on the shoulders of elite performers whose psychological well-being directly contributes to the industry's artistic excellence and economic sustainability. However, the lived experiences of professional musical theatre performers remain underexplored in scholarly literature. Existing research has emphasized individual coping strategies, with less focus on the conditions that support sustained well-being in high-stakes performance contexts. This exploratory single-case study investigated how a seasoned female Broadway performer sustains her well-being throughout her career. METHODS: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was combined with poetic inquiry to interpret and communicate the data, vividly portraying the participant's lived experience. Four found poems were crafted from interview transcripts, using Ryff's eudaimonic model of psychological well-being as a post-analytic lens. FINDINGS: The findings reveal that the performer's psychological well-being was not primarily sustained by conventional strategies such as detachment, rest, or individualized self-care. Rather, her well-being was supported through autonomy, artistic integrity, meaningful connection, and purpose, and threatened when workplace environments withheld recognition, restricted artistic agency, or limited opportunities for honest feedback and collaboration. CONCLUSIONS: Viewed through the lens of Ryff's eudaimonic model of psychological well-being, the findings suggest that this performer's well-being was shaped more by ethical, relational, and structural workplace factors than by individual coping strategies alone. The insights have implications for educators, directors, and producers, emphasizing the need for systemic, autonomy-supportive practices that sustain artistic excellence and support long-term participation in elite performance industries.