From around this time last fall through August, I was a member of the core creative team that devised Free Street Theater’s summer 2019 show, Still/Here: Manifesting Joy and Survival. The commitment was basically like a part-part-time job, with two or more devising rehearsals a week for the 10-month period, as well as generative assignments and community workshops outside that. It’s impossible to estimate how many critical conversations, demanding activities, creative breakthroughs and dead-ends, and personal and collective journeys occurred across those interactions, but what we came up with together through all those challenges was a show that I remain immensely proud of. The final official description of our shared creation, care of Free Street, was:
The apocalypse is here…but it’s not what you think. In a Chicago that is being rebuilt again and again, who is the city designed to serve? How does our city’s past predict our future? And what would our city look like if it were truly designed for all of its people? Part manifesto, part history lesson, part fever dream of the future, Still/Here invites audiences to imagine a more just and joyful Chicago.
Created and performed by an ensemble of 17 artists from across the city, Still/Here is based on material collected in workshops with community members across the city, as well as interviews and conversations with hundreds of people who were asked to answer the questions: What’s still here? What isn’t? And what does your joy require?
At the conclusion of this long and incredibly fulfilling process—and with a boost from additional artists who joined our ensemble for the final stages and shows—we performed Still/Here in four Chicago parks (for free!): outside the South Shore Cultural Center, and in Humboldt Park, Cornell Square Park (Back of the Yards), and Walsh Park (Wicker Park). Some of the most rewarding moments for me, personally, included hearing audience members say that the issues we engaged in the show made them feel less alone, often because they realized something didn’t only affect their community or them as an individual; or hearing audience members say that they felt seen; that they had never before heard their neighborhood discussed, celebrated, or even mentioned in a play; that they learned something new and illuminating about the history of their city; that the show “raised [their] consciousness” about and “inspired confidence to confront” unjust situations; that we got it right or told the truth. There were also moving interactions that I really hadn’t anticipated, such as little kids wanting to meet us after the show like we were celebrities, people telling me they cried during my monologue about my neighborhood (at least some promised they cried “in a good way”), and even getting recognized at a community meeting the following week (“Hey, weren’t you in…?”). It’s not work one does for recognition, but it still felt amazing to have our group’s months of effort to create something that was simultaneously joyful, critical, and real seem to be so valued by the people we made it for and with, and to see that the show seemed to have resonated with so many, across neighborhoods, identities, and generations.
Special thanks from me to Free Street for their unique and essential vision and for inviting me into this process; to my fellow ensemble members for their unending brilliance, clarity, courage, and generosity; to the hundreds of people who contributed (and entrusted) their stories and experiences to our process, as well as to those who gave their time by showing up to witness and participate in the final production; and—as always, and as I wrote in my program bio—to “all people who ask big questions, engage with complexity, and challenge [me] to do the same.”
Images: Photos # 1, 2, 5, 11, and 12 courtesy of Free Street Theater, with aerial and most others by Alejandro Reyes. Photos #3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 by Agnotti Cowie. The images reflect different aspects of public shows outside the South Shore Cultural Center and in Humboldt Park. Most images depict scenes from the performance, including movement sections, monologues, and intercharacter conflicts, with some interactions appearing more humorous and others more serious. Other images show an impromptu cast photo and the colorful set from above.
