Open Wide: Dr. Mark Manhart's Journey in Dentistry, Theatre, Education, Family, and Life

In people or in art, according to Dr. Mark Manhart, "You may not like nor understand everything you see, but at least you will have a truer view of all that went into making the man or the artwork." This biographical memoir takes the reader through all of his different lives – his "open life" and his "secret life". Manhart's professional side finds him a highly trained dentist who is actively engaged in developing new treatments and therapies. His inner passion, which keeps him charged, is his involvement in theatre as a playwright, director, and sometimes an actor. "One needs a real work-a-day life and then at least one other life, some hobby, avocation, distraction, to work on and make your way before the game is played out." Manhart lives by the creed that in order to fulfill his potential, he needed to feed all the different parts of himself, and since making that discovery, that is how he continues to thrive.

Manhart currently resides in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a thirty-year dental partnership with Dr. Tom Steg. Manhart and his wife of over twenty years, Bonnie Gill, don’t always see eye to eye, but they agree on the important things in life. Together they have ten children, eight from Manhart's first marriage of twenty years, and two from Gill's first marriage.