IN-PERSON: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of verbatim theatre (scripts made from transcripts of interviews) to strengthen communities. Most Canadian theatres focus on entertainment, treating their audiences like consumers. How might theatre and theatres engage differently with cities? This paper is a braid of a research creation project and academic analysis of theatre used in community-based work to make a city more livable. In the summer of 2019 in Pleasant Hill (an inner-city neighbourhood in Saskatoon, the largest city in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada), there were five homicides. The author, a theatre artist, was moved to get involved, and through a relationship with the President of the Pleasant Hill Community Association, launched a project to conduct 100 interviews with Pleasant Hill community members – and then turn the transcript of those interviews into a play. The author and his team interviewed a great diversity of Pleasant Hill residents, including Indigenous Elders, seniors, children, police officers, community association members and intercept interviews in public spaces. In April of 2022 the verbatim play “Pleasant Hill Talks” was read for over 250 community members. The play included residents’ thoughts and feelings about the assets and challenges of their community, including hopes and dreams for ways to make it more livable. One unexpected result from the play was the finding that Pleasant Hill is the only community in Saskatoon (a northern winter city) without an ice-skating rink. This paper describes how the process of creating the verbatim theatre play brought the community together, and how the findings are already leading to change the community: new funding for the construction of an ice-skating rink.