Art and Activism: Reverie Theatre Group has something to say about abortion rights
Activism is inherently artistic. It is the shaping and naming of the reality you have collectively imagined using the raw materials in your grasp to describe and demand it. It is performance art.
When faced with existential decisions and life-changing policies, people in different media handle them in different ways. Politicians campaign and endorse candidates that promote their values. Lobbyists support legislation that will benefit their causes. Businesses will support campaigns that are going to help them the most. In the mess and the turmoil of it all, we, as artists, are going to do what we do best: we are going to create. That is what Reverie Theatre Group is doing in Providence this election season at 134 Collaborative at Mathewson Street Church with their production of The Wish.
When faced with the real threat of abortion bans and reproductive misinformation in the hands of politicians and lawmakers, a group of artists and activists came together and created a script. This script is a conglomeration of perspectives: stories, visions, and vignettes of our post-Roe world and the fear and uncertainty that comes with that. In the sadness, however, we also find a lot of hope and togetherness in our community. And within the words of the play, the methods, access, and resources for abortion are preserved–and are meant to be shouted, whispered, cried, and sung far and wide. The Wish: A Manual for a Last Ditch Effort to Save Abortion in the United States through Theater was written by Justice Hehir, Dena Igusti, Phanesia Pharel, Nia Akilah Robinson, and Julia Specht.
As artists, we find that in these times of monumental change and in the face of a looming election that could bring on big decisions regarding reproductive healthcare, we have a duty to create. We must create space to grieve and space to celebrate. We must create room to experience these feelings we have in productive and healthy ways. We create work that is thought-provoking and heavy, that is funny and bittersweet. We create and laugh and cry, and we leave knowing we’ve given people something to think about or we’ve made ourselves think differently. Art is the ability to say things there are no words for, and activism is the ability to say things that people in power do not want to hear.
Activism is inherently artistic. It is the shaping and naming of the reality you have collectively imagined using the raw materials in your grasp to describe and demand it. It is performance art.
In the face of anxiety about historical transitions and the ever-looming existential dread, art, and activism provide holistic options for engaging in a reality that sometimes leaves us paralyzed with fear. Politicians campaign, and lobbyists lobby, but artists create. And the artists make you feel motivated to get back out there when the politicians campaigning have you feeling at your wit’s end. We are here to realign you.
Art is commonly used as a way to be topical and communicate with the community. Theatre is rooted in protest and combating societal norms. You can look back on the past 60 years in America’s history and see theatre being used as social commentary and as a way to fight back against social injustice. Theatre groups that use it as a form of protest, “from the extreme to the mundane, were attempts to reach out to the American public in the hopes of change.”1 So, when selecting a production, having an election coming up where one of the top issues is reproductive justice, this play stuck out as something that felt necessary and cathartic. A survey from 2014 indicates that 63% of Rhode Islanders believe that abortion should be legal, and shortly after, in 2019, we passed the Reproductive Privacy Act, which codified Roe v. Wade into State law. Rhode Islanders have made it clear that we support abortion rights, and producing this play at this tumultuous time in our nation’s history is intended to bring us together and ground us in the fight ahead. Art and activism have always gone hand-in-hand, and in the face of uncertainty, artists are always going to push boundaries and create. We need you there to witness this work.
The script encourages us to play and interact with it and to make it our own. This collaborative production process is performed in partnership with The Womxn Project, an RI-based organization that brings in more relevant information and local additions to the story. As an arts organization that holds community as one of our core values, producing this play not only supports our mission but extends our hand to the people around us.
We are so excited to host you at The Wish at 134 Collaborative, 134 Mathewson Street, Providence, RI. The production runs November 7th, 8th, 9th, 15th, and 16th at 7:30 pm and the 17th at 3:00 pm. Tickets can be purchased online on a sliding scale, with $15 as the general admission price. Visit ReverieTheatreGroup.org for more information.
Lauren Pothier received her BA in Musical Theatre in 2018 and a Master’s in Public Administration in 2021. She has ample experience in local-level political campaigns and grassroots community organizing. She has lived in Rhode Island her whole life and wants nothing more than to create art here, too. She is deeply invested in social justice and the intersection of art and the human experience. She is currently the artistic director of Reverie Theatre Group, a new nonprofit theatre company dedicated to creating safe, accessible, and exciting theatre.
Cynthia Mendes is a Social Justice activist, Queer and anti-oppression Poet, and former Rhode Island State Senator from East Providence. Cynthia is also the former Vice Chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, a former Candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2022, where the Equality in Abortion Care Act was a central part of her platform, and she is currently a director of an Environmental Justice policy nonprofit organization in Boston.
Rothman, Angela. “Revolutionary Theatricality: Dramatized American Protest, 1967-1968.” (2016).
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