Ceiling in the Floor by Hilary Thomas and starring the Lineage Dance Company runs Jan. 24 to Feb. 1, 2026 at Lineage Performing Arts Center. Photo Courtesy of Lineage Performing Arts Center.
On a late January evening in Pasadena, a small theater asks audiences to sit with a paradox: a man who spent more than a decade answering crisis calls and “saved hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of lives through his work at the Crisis Line” also died by suicide himself.
“Ceiling in the Floor,” a 70-minute dance-theater production at the Lineage Performing Arts Center, honors Brandon Elliot Toh (1974–2012), a musician and mental health professional whose death still reverberates through the communities he served.
Choreographed by his childhood friend Hilary Thomas and featuring Toh’s original music, the piece explores “the darkness of mental illness, unveiling an inspired, true story about two lives bound together through music and dance.”
Built around Thomas’s private journal entries and incorporating Toh’s songs, letters and material from his suicide risk-assessment manual, the production carries content warnings for themes of suicide and drug use. It is recommended for audiences 13 and older.
Toh earned a biology degree from UC Berkeley, where he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1996. He volunteered at the Alameda Suicide Hotline while still a student, then worked at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services’ Suicide Prevention Center for more than a decade, training volunteers and developing crisis protocols. Simultaneously, he worked as a sound designer and composer, with credits including Grammy-nominated work for The Killers.
Rick Mogil, coordinator of Didi Hirsch’s Survivors After Suicide program, said: “Brandon saved hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of lives through his work at the Crisis Line.”
Each performance concludes with a panel discussion featuring performers, Toh’s sister and Didi Hirsch colleagues addressing suicide, mental illness stigma and art’s healing power.
“Ceiling in the Floor” will run on Saturday, Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. Lineage Performing Arts Center, 920 E. Mountain St., in Pasadena. For more call (626) 844-7008 or visit https://www.lineagepac.org/upcoming-events/ceiling.
