Dzidek Krautmann has done it. The YouTube video of his absolute lowest point has three million clicks, he was gleefully torn to shreds by the media, and now he's finally in a secure psychiatric ward. Time to tell the true story.

As fellow patients in group therapy, the audience becomes the direct confidant of a fast-paced and hilariously funny life confession. Dzidek, a homeless German-Polish "zebra," stumbles headlong into the clutches of the cynical music industry while fleeing an unresolved childhood trauma. To escape obscurity, he signs a fatal pact: He sacrifices his true musical voice and his great love, Selma, to celebrate the ultimate, scandalous downfall on stage as the grotesque, artificial pop icon "Pharaoh."

A Short History of My Successful Failure is a reckoning with the commodification of art, a trip through the depths of the entertainment industry – and a tender portrait of an outsider who had to lose everything to find himself.