At the Boston University School of Law commencement in 2018, Bryan Stephenson of The Equal Justice Initiative named several integral elements to justice work, notably Hope and Proximity.
He said that there are two groups of people in the world, “…those with hope and those working against those with hope.”
He spoke of proximity as essential in order to solve social problems of concern. He stated that one must be proximate to communities afflicted with the problems of concern in order to adequately understand and address the problems and aid the people affected by them.
This all resonated for me in what have been two extraordinary efforts over the last two decades I’ve been privileged to be an integral member of:
And these words drove me toward the following effort:
Experiments in Civic Hope
An Experiment in Civic Hope was created in response to the recent pandemic, which shut down theatre in New York City and marked a seminal moment for understanding cultural, regional and communal divides across The United States.
The first experiment was a collaboration between The Living Theatre, The South Bend Civic Theatre and two centers at The University of Notre Dame: The Eck Institute for Global Health and The Center for Social Concerns.
The next experiments in Civic Hope were conducted in:
South Bend with Connect 2b The Change, local theatre artists, and professors associated with the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at Notre Dame.
Scranton, PA with The Scranton Fringe Festival, The Lackawanna/Luzerne County Medical Society, and Black Scranton Project
White Plains & NYC, NYC and regional communities in Massachusetts around Cannabis: A Viper Vaudeville.
Lake Worth, FL with The Lake Worth Playhouse, Bob Carter’s Actors Rep, & The South Florida Theatre League
Not all of these experiments were successful or sustainable.
Some are still ongoing.
Most people are barely available to do any more than pay the bills and execute the basic operations of their non profits, almost none of which pay livable wages. All of the experiments involve the exhaustion of personal funds, along with sacrifices to family and the general well being of the people involved.
One initial element of these experiments that seemed more possible in the fluid online world of the pandemic, was proximity. In the post pandemic era, the return to “normalcy” has taken back over most of the fluidity of that period, making sustained connection and further experimentation much more difficult as daily life re-occupies people’s lives.
In fact, one of the biggest lessons of the experiments so far has been that the post pandemic era has included a total global lack of acknowledgement of the scale & permanence of the effects of the pandemic. This has resulted in a dampened global spirit that struggles to find hope at a time when so many advancements ought to be pointing us towards an enlightened age of abundance.
Currently, the thrust of the experiments are being engaged in the greater Lowell and Merrimack Valley region of Massachusetts based out of Dracut, MA where I grew up. The main lesson learned in South Bend, Scranton, FL and NY was that I needed to rediscover my roots and integrate my twenty years of professional life there with my family and original local community before attempting further experiments in proximity elsewhere.
Brad Burgess, Artistic Director
Current Collaborators:
