A unique theater experience at the Coronado Playhouse is based on more than 100 real conversations with people who are experiencing homelessness. NBC 7’s Dana Williams reports.
It’s a new kind of play that is now showing at the Coronado Playhouse. It’s not meant to make you laugh, it’s not likely to make you smile, but it will make you uncomfortable and that’s what the creators want.
“I think we as a company are very aware that the unhoused and the unsheltered community are about as marginalized as it gets in today’s society,” Blake McCarty told NBC 7. He is the executive artistic director for Blindspot Collective, an organization that produces “radically inclusive” programming to amplify the voices and perspectives of those who are underserved.
It’s why McCarty is one of the creators, writers and the director of “Another Day in Paradise.” It’s a 90-minute documentary-style play with music that tells the stories of people who are experiencing homelessness in San Diego in their own words.
“We went into this process knowing the stories would be hard and then the stories were maybe harder than we expected,” McCarty said, while he apologized and tried to hold back tears thinking of the people who he’d met.
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McCarty and three others, with the help of a research grant from the World Design Capital 2024 program that is focused on the San Diego-Tijuana region, spent seven months listening to people living on the streets or in shelter settings. McCarty said in the beginning they would go to parks or walk the streets, primarily in downtown San Diego, and ask people if they wanted to participate. However, they began to shift to speaking with those who were being assisted with resources from places like Father Joe’s or the San Diego Rescue Mission.
“We wanted to be really mindful [of] conducting research in a way that felt responsible and ensuring that anyone consenting to using their real words was in a mindset where they understood what they were consenting to,” McCarty explained. “By and large the response is [that they were] overwhelmingly eager to speak.”
Most of the interviews lasted about an hour and each person was given a gift card to thank them for their time. It is from those interviews that McCarty and the project’s other creative team members crafted 19 characters. Some of which are based off of one specific person who they met, others are a composite of two or more people who shared similar themes and experiences. The play deals with mature themes, so it is not recommended for children.
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“So many of our unhoused in San Diego are just like us,” Dacara Seward, a performer in the play, told NBC 7. “They're steps away from being us. They made certain decisions that put them on the streets and at any moment that could be one of us.”
Seward portrays two characters, one is an older woman who is not able to support herself financially and the other is a younger woman who has dealt with sexual assault. Seward shared she has a background working in mental health, so this project resonated with her deeply. She said there is also immense pressure, coupled with strong emotions, knowing they are the stories of real people.
“The audiences get to actually look at us putting on this person,” she said, explaining that they put on the clothing of the character and transform on stage. But it’s after the scene is done that it hits her the hardest.
“Oftentimes when I'm taking off that costume I get emotional because, and I'm going to get emotional now, you're connecting to that person again and you're saying like I honor you as a person and thank you for your existence,” she said. “The fact that we get to take that off, it’s sad that they don't get to take anything off. That’s them.”
It is real and raw, but important, McCarty and Seward both agreed.
“There isn't an intermission, so we’re just going to keep piling and piling and piling on these stories and these powerful messages, so that audiences are then forced to reflect and recognize the humanity of these people that they often walk past and ignore,” Seward said.
Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. until Nov. 24. Tickets are $30 and they will be collecting donation items, like blankets, backpacks and canned goods, at the door to create care packages for the people who were interviewed for the project.
“Sit, listen, hold space,” McCarty said when asked about what he hopes audience members take away from the performance. “The show culminates in a song that repeats the refrain ‘I'm still here.'”
For more information on the play, click here.
