Musical now playing in Dallas tells story of the man on the billboard in 2010

It was a scene that made headlines across the country and stopped traffic in Fort Worth 15 years ago. A naked man spent six hours atop a billboard on West 7th Street before police talked him down.

A musical in Dallas tells James Apple's story.

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"Boy on Billboard" tells the true events of Lisa Apple's brother James, that traumatic day and his death five months later.

"She started writing the script, looking into my family and talking and asking and put the script together. And then I'd sit down at the piano and start writing music to it. And the way that things started to flow out, I mean, it was very cathartic. It was very healing," said Apple who is co-creator of the musical.

"He was the youngest of four of us. And growing up, he was just the easiest, brightest," Lisa recalled. "In our family, he was like the bright spot."

Music was part of the family's home in Plano. James played guitar as a child and then taught himself piano as a teenager. His singing sister Lisa was often at his side. James could play piano by ear, and it got him a job at a piano bar in Fort Worth.

He moved west and into an apartment across the street from the billboard where the 23-year-old stayed for more than six hours that day in May 2010 while his family watched and waited.

"The police had said, 'Don't look directly at him. And as we're walking, you know, it's like I kept my gaze down but I would glance up. It was this sort of unbelievable image that you just, you couldn't even ever think that anything like this would happen to someone in your family," Lisa said. "And then the negotiator had made, started making comments about the weather. There was a storm that's going to come in. And for whatever reason, like that was enough. And so yeah, James came down."

James was facing a storm of his own that day; a storm doctors said was schizophrenia and its delusions, hallucinations and paranoid thoughts.

"We sort of went on this hunt to figure out. Was it alcohol? Was it drugs? Was it weed? Was it, you know, all the, all the things? And still, really mental illness was honestly not on the radar for us." Lisa said. "My mom and I sat down with a doctor and she's the one that looked across from us. And she actually said, 'Cases like this don't end well.'"

Five months after the billboard incident, two hospital stays, then transitional housing and roommates, that prognosis proved tragically true.

"They just sat me down and said when James came in, he had basically poked himself with a knife. He had had like an episode, like a psychotic episode. And nobody knew about it except right after he did it, he went to his roommates and said, I didn't mean to do this. Like, I didn't mean to do this, take me to the hospital," Lisa said. "They drove him to the hospital, laid him down on the gurney. And he said, you know, 'I'll see you guys when I wake up.' And he never did. And so, the doctor proceeded to tell me as they got into work on him, they thought it was, you know, nothing severe. And as they got further in, they said he had poked at some major arteries. And it was too much."

James died on Oct. 1, 2010, a day after his 24th birthday.

Lisa found comfort in music; writing songs about her brother and her family's experience with mental illness. It led to the album in 2017 called "Music for the Sky." One of the songs, "Jamie," is about the younger brother she lost too soon.

A few years later, Lisa's longtime friend and fellow educator Meg Parker Wilson found encouragement in those songs. Wilson said thoughts about suicide had put her husband in the hospital.

"It was a really scary time and at the same time, it was really hopeful because we had answers. We had some answers about his depression and about his struggle," Wilson said. "And we all go through, right? We all go through times in our lives where we struggle and so listening to Lisa's song, it reminded me of James, of the story of her family, of what they had walked through and it helped me personally feel like I'm not alone."

The friends had long dreamed of collaborating on a project and found inspiration in that song, "Jamie."

"When I heard that song and I remembered Lisa and the story of her brother, I thought maybe this is it, this is the story we need to tell as crazy as it sounded. Because if I'm feeling this way, I know other people are feeling this way and so we need to talk about it," Wilson said.

Their shared experience and collaboration led to the 2019 musical Boy on Billboard, a haunting true story about mental health, family, and the battle within.

"Going through something like this, it cannot be in vain and the beauty of who my brother was, was not for nothing. He impacted so many people's lives. At his funeral, we actually had to move locations because it was like overflowing. So many people showed up from as far back as middle school to those he'd recently met," Lisa said. "I feel the duty to tell this story but the way that it opens up people's hearts and then all of a sudden it lessens this isolation and it lessens the darkness."

Both women know that darkness, seeing loved ones struggle with mental illness.

Hope. Healing. A call to action. That's what they want audiences to find in their musical.

"We can't help but write hope into it because we've experienced it. But we've also, we want to take care of the people that are watching, the audiences. We want to take care of them. We want to express and make sure that they feel seen, but also that they receive a true message, a beautiful message of goodness and hope that there is light in this life," Wilson said.

From the first table read in 2019, a full stage production in Richardson in 2023 and a sold-out, one-night-only staged revue last summer in New York, "Boy on Billboard" is now back in North Texas and playing at Gallery Defi in Dallas from Thursday, March 13 through Sunday, March 17. The Dallas performance is a crucial step towards a 29-hour reading in New York City. Ticket purchases and support from art sales will directly fund hiring NYC talent, securing performance space, and gathering essential feedback from industry professionals. The ultimate ending would be a full Broadway production.

Yet every time an audience sees "Boy on Billboard," they are seeing what Lisa saw in her brother James, the creative, funny young man everybody loved. It's his story beyond the billboard.

"My brother's not here anymore," Lisa said, "but his memory will live on and, and that's what's really special. "

Learn more about "Boy on Billboard" here. Find ticket information here.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org -- callers will be connected with trained counselors available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.