I have an idea for the plays. You want to hear it?
And obviously we are only one month in, so there is no doubt in my mind that the will change many times over before we get to the finish line, but right now, I am seeing three short plays emerge (roughly 10-15 min each / 30-45 minute of play total).
Play 1 is set in the café where we see the intersection of culture and food and language that happens here as we feed and nourish people. The actors will cook food live for the audience! Food sourced from the Global Grace Farm.
Play 2 would center around the Accompany Now Case Workers, one of whom arrived in Play 1 to pick up food for a delivery to the houseless community. We (the audience) move with her, from the moment of picking up food for delivery, to learning about her day, her work and the issues she is up against as she gives out food to her clients / the audience.
In Play 3 (now bear with me as this is a little bit of creative departure) the case workers land us in a refugee housing unit for their final food delivery of the evening. Here we meet refugees and asylum seekers making a home together under one roof, someone might be from Uganda, someone from Eritrea, someone else from Syria, someone from Turkey, someone from Guatemala and someone from central Jersey, all breaking bread together at the dinner table. And redefining ideas of home, or family and of community. Here we get to learn about the social and policy issues facing these unique refugee communities and the organizations that serve them. We learn first-hand what is working, what isn’t , and what change is so desperately needed to justly hold all our beloved communities.
The presentation would strive for simplicity, with a focus on our community members and actors at music stands reading the plays. It is all about the people and their stories. No fancy costumes or spectacle, no special effects or fog machines.
Moreover, I want the plays to be mobile and nimble, able to present outdoors and to adapt to our quickly shifting world. They are designed so that one of the plays could be picked up and used (for example) as testimony when a bill is being heard or for a policymaker event. If we want to move a section of the play to another venue, to put it up quickly at a rally, for instance, or at a march, or at another church or community event - it should operate in that way. The work should be flexible enough to do that, to be a tool of personal storytelling for RCHP’s overall work.
Finally, I think the short plays will be interspersed with facilitated dialogue. So that the audience can be in conversation with one another about the issues and stories being presented on stage. The plays want to be be multilingual, which means dreaming into creative offerings for translation and captioning.
And, like I said, this idea is just a jumping off point and will continue to evolve as I share it with the community and get their feedback.