Following years of battling with the symptoms, diagnosis and challenges of M.S., Mierka Girten began to see the powerful connection between her career in theater and her personal battles with M.S.

Theater, a medium defined by its ability to communicate story in transcendent and dramatic ways and M.S., a disease whose unpredictability can create spontaneous challenges that eventually demand acceptance and humor seemed a perfect match. In September of 1998, Mierka sat down with Second City trained director and writer Michael Thomas and began to craft a one woman show on her story with the inspirational title, "With or Without Wings" a reference to a life affirming dream in which Mierka found herself flying after a failed suicide attempt. Playing herself in comical, humbling, trying but most definitely real life circumstances, Mierka took on over 15 different characters in 70 minutes, including bizarre healers, menacing doctors, misunderstanding sales associates, endearing and self-absorbed friends, whacked out directors and, of course, her very own mother.

Taking on M.S. was a challenge that Mierka had chosen to meet with her own skills in dramatic comedy. Proving that laughter is the best medicine, With or Without Wings successfully invites the audience in on an informative and personal journey of one woman's determination to overcome adversity with comedy. In the 2008 remount of With or Without Wings at A Red Orchid Theatre, where Mierka is an ensemble member, the actress shared her creative cure for the disease, "M.S. will not win if I laugh in its ugly face."

Here is a written excerpt from the show:

When I was diagnosed I just sat there. I couldn't get up out of the chair. I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. To be honest with you I didn't even know what MS was, but I knew it was bad. I knew that former mouseketeer, Annette Funicello had it...and so did Richard Pryor...and that it was some mysterious disease that sooner or later confines you to a wheelchair. I went home. I was all alone. I called up a friend and told her the news. She tried to cheer me up. She told me that now I was one of Jerry's kids and that the Easter Seals people do some really great stuff. I told her that was Muscular Dystrophy, not Multiple Sclerosis. I sensed that I was getting defensive about it. I guess when you finally get diagnosed with your disease you tend to get a little possessive and protective of it.

The Critics on With or Without Wings:

"...it's her vinegary sense of humor and unblinking self-awareness that make this show more than just a feel-good, carpe-diem homily."
--Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader

"By crafting such a vocally intense and physically exhausting show (she plays 15 characters), she obviously has no intention of letting MS rule her life."
--Lucia Maurio, Chicago Theatre

"Girten has guts...lots of guts and lots of heart...and a wicked funny bone...she and her show have become Chicago treasures."
--Randy Hardwick, ChicagoCritic.com