Nickelsville, the play

Some friends and I got talking not too long ago and we agreed that it was time to do something. Time to push the arts in a little more constructive direction. So we started a little group called Parsnip – don’t ask and I won’t have to make something up… We started having meetings and decided that our first project will be a play about Nickelsville, the Seattle homeless village named after the mayor, Greg Nickels. It’s pretty exciting. Here’s brief outline that I wrote up. I’ll post more later.

Nickelsville - the play

A concept overview

This is a play about the self-governing homeless village called Nickelsville, a very real community named after the mayor of Seattle, WA, and not unlike the Hoovervilles of the 1930s. It will tell the story of the vision and the building of the village, its struggle to survive, its locations and relocations. Why it is necessary, and why it will not go away until certain societal fundamentals are addressed. The story will be presented on stage by actors and by some of the homeless themselves. The through-line idea is to blur the division between the audience and the story in such a way as to make the reality of Nickelsville undeniable. The audience will feel themselves as residents, or at least see the residents as relatives.

The creation is in the tradition and spirit of Theater Of the Oppressed, theatrical method based on the theories of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, and further refined by Augusto Boal, also of Brazil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Oppressed To quote from Wikipedia: “This method uses theater as a means of knowledge and transformation... The public becomes active, so that the ‘spect-actors’ explore, show, analyze and transform the reality in which they are living.” Therefore, the Nickelsville production is envisioned as a vehicle to inspire people to engage in the process of change, to realize that the choice between stagnation and movement is theirs to make. It is not the purpose or the responsibility of the play to make up people’s minds for them, or to direct their thinking – but it is hoped that people will see Nickelsville and the condition of the homeless in Seattle, and in America, in a context that was previously unavailable to them. In other words, it will go behind the two dimensional media bite to reveal the humanity.

The idea of the Nickelsville play has received the enthusiastic support of Tim Harris of Real Change News, Bob Barnes of Seattle Labor Chorus, and the residents of Nickelsville itself.

Concept ideas include giant headlines from Seattle newspapers about Nickelsville projected onto the wall. Participants planted in the audience who will rise from time to time and correct the story on stage. Special name-tagged seating reserved in the front row for Mayor and Mrs Nickels. The residents of Nickelsville include women and teenagers, poor whites, Indians, blacks, and several active members of Veterans For Peace. VFP, Seattle Chapter 92, is the sponsor of the village. In the end it is hoped that this production will serve to open a venue for understanding that didn’t exist before. And that understanding will lead to action.