Challenge
To create a theatre of radical inclusiveness.

Plan
Partner with community organizations; host auditions around the city.

What Worked
Tapping into the community’s performing organizations; a team of four stage managers.

What Didn’t
Traditional rehearsal schedules and e-mail lists don’t fit the needs of many non-professional cast members.

What’s Next
More community-based theatre around the country

Brooklyn-based director Lear deBessonet radiates positive energy, but she’s had her share of frustrations. “One of my first disappointments making work in New York City was how narrow the audience sometimes felt,” she says. She began reaching out to BronxConnect, a mentoring program, and Streetwork Project, which invites homeless and street-involved youth to performances. But that didn’t prove to be wholly satisfying, either. “I’m interested in making a theatre of what I call ‘radical inclusiveness,’ so I wanted to find a way to expand who had a stake in the work that I do,” she recalls. “Don Quixote was the start of that.”

DeBessonet’s community-based Quixote bowed at Philadelphia’s Broad Street Ministry. It involved both professional performers and community members, including people who had struggled with homelessness. When deBessonet received a commission from the Old Globe, San Diego’s flagship theatre, she wondered if she could conduct a similarly expansive event. “It was huge that Lou Spisto and Michael Murphy said yes to this idea—they had a lot of faith,” deBessonet declares, referring to Old Globe’s recently departed CEO/executive producer and its interim managing director, respectively.

DeBessonet first went to San Diego to talk with people in the community. “It was a listening trip,” she says. “One question I asked everyone was, ‘How did you get to San Diego?’ There was a lot of heat in these stories, and I was struck by how so many people, regardless of race or class, had experienced epic journeys to the city they now called home,” says deBessonet, noting how San Diego is both a border and military town. Working on a reimagined version of The Odyssey seemed like a fitting project to pursue.

DeBessonet cites L.A.’s Cornerstone Theater Company and Michelle Hensley’s Ten Thousand Things Theater in Minneapolis, with whom she has worked in the past, as inspirations. “A lesson I draw from Michelle is that in an imagined world, we can all enter as equals. No one has an edge up on how we imagine the Cyclops or the Siren.” DeBessonet’s collaborator, composer Todd Almond, set to work writing 19 original songs. The next task was figuring out which community organizations would be best suited for different parts of the narrative.

The gospel choir of San Diego’s St. Stephen’s Church, for example, proved perfect for the voice of Athena. Valhalla High School’s drum line could serve as the palace guard. The hip-hop dance group Culture Shock, deBessonet determined, would make great Phaeacians, whereas four members of the Globe Guilders, well-heeled patrons of the theatre, could play the Sirens. A number of men in uniform enlisted as Odysseus’s men. San Diego Junior Theatre populated the underworld. “Odysseus’s mother was an 8-year-old girl,” deBessonet deadpans. She and her team were intent on getting the word out so that people unaffiliated with groups could also take part in the show. The local YMCA and Harbor Church, dedicated to serving undocumented immigrants, also put out the call.

Auditions, held at the Old Globe and a local trailer park, singled out 50 additional performers to supplement the enlisted groups, bringing the cast to a whopping 181 people.

One gets dizzy imagining the logistics that go into such a project. It’s no surprise a stage management team of four was required. Performance groups would work material into their regular practice (the choir, for example, started learning music for the show three months out), and each day various performance elements would be layered into rehearsal. Moreover, three professional actors were in the mix, requiring special clearance from Equity. “Michael Murphy submitted a request to Equity and it was granted,” says deBessonet with a sigh of relief, adding that the show was marketed as a special event. There were only three performances. “It’s not the only way to do something like this, but that’s how we did it this time,” the director reasons. The three Equity performers were paid, but the rest of the cast was not. They did, however, receive two comp tickets each. (Regularly priced tickets went for $15.)

Evangeline Rose Whitlock, the lead stage manager, recalls the potluck dinner that kicked off rehearsals: “How fitting for a company that came from all over the city to sit down at the table and break bread together.” DeBessonet set the tone for the proceedings. “I talked about how art is usually a mirror of society, reflecting the world we live in with its ills and its joys. Something that excites me about theatre is that together we can forge an idea of where we could be—in a unified, joyful, vibrant city in which we celebrate each other.” 

Despite the fact that performers hailed from all parts of the city, those that signed on to The Odyssey were keen on making the journey together. Whitlock embodies that generosity of spirit when she notes, “I knew this project would require a certain level of care, compassion and sensitivity to the many different groups of people involved.” With that knowledge in mind, she decided to keep ensemble members informed by phone instead of relying on e-mail. “I knew the life circumstances of everyone in the cast didn’t necessarily lend themselves to regular e-mail,” she adds, joking about how the phone calls often lasted longer than anticipated.

Regularly scheduled rehearsals were also a challenge for some cast members. “The assumption that someone can be somewhere every day at the same time is a middle- or upper-middle-class assumption,” reasons deBessonet, who points out that a number of performers didn’t have cars and had to rely on public transit to get to rehearsals. When cast members’ childcare fell through, kids were invited to rehearsals, which deBessonet attests worked surprisingly well for all parties. 

For Whitlock, the constant ebb and flow of problem-solving with the cast—not to mention Hurricane Irene, which threatened to ground the creative team in New York; the San Diego blackout, which cancelled a night of rehearsal; and a desperate search for a Cyclops who could do all performances—added meaning to the art-making. “Part of the reason for doing this show,” she says, “was to empower people to better lives and futures through the art of theatre. My role as stage manager was expanded and redefined in this process. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” 

Even with the phone calls to all 181 cast members? “They each had a story to share and were part of a life-changing creative process. In that sense, the stakes were raised. We just kept pushing through, and the final product was something beautiful, inspiring and joyous.”