How CPI works with Communities
and Organizations to grow Performances from
Stories
Story
Gathering.
The first step in community performance is gathering
stories. CPI works with organizations and communities, bringing its
members together to share their stories. Story gathering can take
many forms: group meetings, story circles or one on one interviews
are all rich ways to discover the story of a place. These stories
are then transcribed and archived by the community for future
generations.
Story
Crafting.
Once community stories are collected, CPI’s professional
playwright crafts a working script based on commonalities and issues
suggested by the stories.
Performance
Space.
Partnering with local agencies, CPI helps identify a
performance space that reflects the community, Oftentimes,
communities convert abandoned workspaces, such as dairy barns,
cotton warehouses, packing plants, and factories into performing
spaces, bringing new life to the historic buildings.
Music.
CPI professional musicians and songwriters work with
community residents to find musical threads within the script. A
score is written reflecting the regional music, often incorporating
local musicians in the process.
Review.
After CPI has completed a draft script
and music, the community holds a public reading where the draft is
reviewed and refined. Direct input from the community, both creative
and critical, is used to create the final draft.
Auditions.
CPI holds public auditions, and everyone who attends is
cast in the play. The cast represents their
communities—mixed-income, many generations, and culturally diverse.
Rehearsals.
CPI schedules regular rehearsals with cast and
crew. It is during this process that most bridges are built, as the
large casts of seventy-five to one hundred members begin to relate
with one another, forming ties across age, race, and other barriers.
Community
Building.
During the rehearsal process, cast and crew work together
to generate a great performance, listening to and learning from one
another.
The
Performance.
A professional performance features community members,
educates an audience of neighbors about the issues that may divide
them, and promotes greater understanding around those
issues.
Community
Response.
Audience and cast participate in a dialogue process which
looks deeply into issues raised in the performance. The dialogue
often helps prompt action to answer those issues. Then, more stories
are gathered to contribute to the next performance.
The
Training.
Actors, set designers, lighting technicians,
musicians, writers, directors, and other talented local residents
are trained by CPI artists, apprentice-style, over the course of two
to three years, learning CPI tools and techniques. After this
period, many local residents have the proper training needed to
continue creating community performance productions on their
own.Please visit the project pages
