Host Traven Rice spoke with Alexandra Aron, Founder and Artistic Director of Remote Theater Project, about the upcoming production that will take place in Sara D. Roosevelt Park on Saturday, June 8th at 2pm and 4pm.
The show, titled “Thank You For Listening,” is a community engagement project that’s been in the works for over a year.
It’s based on conversations and workshops with three different communities that intersect in the park; the unhoused community, Chinese seniors and more recently, migrant workers who are temporarily living in hotels near the park.
The team explains the background of the project here: “In September 2022, Remote Theater Project produced “Embrace the Tangle” as part of Little Amal Walks NYC, a project involving over 1,000 community members in the Lower East Side/Chinatown.
The event was a celebration of diverse communities coming together to welcome newcomers, like Little Amal, a Syrian refugee. How can we continue build on this experience to connect diverse groups of people who share the same public space? From this question, The Sara Roosevelt Park project was born.”
Playwright Carmen Rivera wasn’t able to join the conversation in person, but did offer some thoughts about her experience with the project in a phone interview with us after the episode recording.
“We’re living in this divisive time when everyone is screaming at each other,” she said, “so let’s take a step back and remember that we are living on the same planet. Everyone wants to be heard – giving space to their stories, and giving space to the idea that we should all listen to each other was the work…’Open your heart’ is what we want to say with the piece.”
In the play, the park itself is a character. Carmen said, in thinking about bringing everyone’s stories together, she realized, “Where can we find intersections? So …it’s the park…what has the park seen? For me it was, ah ha, let’s bring the park to life….So we started exploring the history of the park and also the relationship the community has to the park. The park has been a real witness to the community and their struggles.”
Listen to the episode on any of the podcast platforms you like here and watch the episode on our YouTube channel here.
