If this presidential election makes you want to scream, have a debate, break things or even just relax away from it all, Sojourn Theatre’s “The Race” is your place to reside on Election Day.
From 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Nov. 8, “The Race” will be an open place for the anxious, excited and everywhere in between to participate in activities, watch the election results and experience performances that highlight what people believe leadership in America should be like. Held at ASU’s Galvin Playhouse, “The Race” invites both sides to have a conversation about this important day for our nation.
Michael Rohd, an institute professor at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts as well as director of “The Race,” has been working with his 25 graduate students to produce this event at ASU. Previously premiering in Washington eight years ago at Georgetown University, this production is being remounted in hopes it can create a safe and playful stage for the upcoming election.
“I have a class dedicated to this project, and those 25 grad students have had lots of assignments and relationships they’ve been trying to build with partners in the community to get folks involved,” Rohd said. “Our interest is making a place that does not feel anxious and wholly partisan, but is a place where we can be having civic conversations on a day that is a pretty important civic day for our nation."
Rohd has planned the day so that there are available stations for participants to go to depending on how the election is making them feel.
“There will be a place where you can relax, a place where you can get into a playful debate with somebody, a place you can write a letter to a previous president," he said. "(This will be) a spot where you can get angry and break something, a spot where you can yell and then there will be the main theater itself where in addition to watching CNN, people have been creating performances around this idea of leadership in America from a non-partisan perspective."
While “The Race” focuses on the election results and different candidates, Rohd said that it also focuses on the concept of leadership and what people want leadership to mean, both in America and in everyday life.
“This election cycle has been so stressful, awful and dispiriting for many on all sides of the equation, and we are just hoping it offers a place to come together as a community and have a conversation about what we want leadership to mean to us,” Rohd said. “I’d rather be with a bunch of folks having dialogue and art than sitting home alone shouting at the T.V.”
Jinsun Myung, a second year student in the Theatre for Youth Program and theater graduate student at ASU, said she felt honored to be able to work with Rohd on this project that allows people to have deeper conversations about leadership.
“Sometimes we think the theater is injecting a message, but Michael Rohd’s concept is always dialogue,” she said.
Myung said “The Race” will give a voice to those who don’t have one in this election.
“We are going to collaborate to make a voting booth for those who cannot vote, for example: children, felons and international students,” she said.
She will be in charge of the listening and communication room, one of the available stations of the day. She said she will be a listening ear for all who want to talk.
“It’s a whole process of listening to people’s definition of leadership, and we’re going to plant some phones and collect their questions and answers,” she said.
Along with the activities and CNN election results, at 7 p.m. Rohd’s graduate students will be presenting their show, which doesn’t play out like any ordinary trip to the theater. In fact, Myung said the monologues collected from her communication room will be used in the scripts of the later performance.
“Their opinion about this presidential election are going to be embodied through performer’s voices,” Myung said.
"The Race" is coming. Here's a little peek into the devising process. Just a bit of movement work... 😊🇺🇸🎉
Posted by Vickie Hall on Friday, October 21, 2016
Vickie Hall, a performer and part of the collaborative team, said she hopes this event will help people look beyond political parties and candidates.
“I personally hope the people who come are looking for a way to address the deeper issues at hand with our government and our society than just Democrat and Republican, or Green Party, Libertarian or Independent,” she said. “I think that we as a society have moved into a very different time than we grew up in and that our parents grew up in, and I think that performances like this make us stop as a collective, look at each other and say what is really going on here and how can we move forward in the best way possible.”
By participating in “The Race,” Hall feels her own perspective on politics has been changed.
“This election is scaring me, and by being involved in this process, I personally have been able to lean on the advice, the wisdom, the fears and the honesty of my colleagues, and we have been able to work together to make it bigger than this election,” she said. “I think it has totally changed my perspective on politics because collaborative theater-making is democracy in action.”
"The Race" will take place on Nov. 8 from 3-10 p.m. in Galvin Playhouse on ASU Tempe campus, and is free to the public.
Reach the reporter at kasando1@asu.edu or follow @karismasandoval onTwitter.
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