How many cultures in your neighborhood? no way!

Cultural dispatch from Jackson Heights, Queens, New York:

On Friday night on my way home I looked around as I walked under the 7 train and wondered about how many cultures might be present in my neighborhood of Jackson Heights, in Queens, NY. My answer came that very night in the form of a play.

I was heading first to a kebab place to get our meal for the night, and chanced upon a poster for 167 Tongues, a play about my neighborhood and its extraordinary diversity. It was closing that night, so I ran the kebabs back home, inhaled my food and made it just in time to the school where the show was presented.

The play was produced by the relatively new Jackson Repertory, which was founded with the goal of "creating a home for ... theatre that is organically connected to the community of Jackson Heights and acts as a space for positive cross-cultural experiences". 167 Tongues, a reference to the number of languages supposedly spoken in Queens, had more than 25 short plays from 11 different playwrights. The director Ari Laura Kreith explained in her notes that on the first day of the project the playwrights had walked the neighborhood together, created a map and had started "[creating] characters who might populate this world." They collaborated for months and finally developed "a full script- a theatrical collage".

Here was an experiment in cross-cultural collaboration on the theme of cross-cultural living. There was a palpable spirit of support amongst the many actors, and this energy was fed back by a welcoming and packed audience, excited to have a play made about them- about us. The segments were like "tranches de vie"- moments of life, and succeeded in painting the neighborhood in that they were earnest, moving, hilarious at times, and somewhat disconnected from each other, though some stories did interweave. That is indeed Jackson Heights to me: diverse, disjointed, surprising. There was no attempt to bring all the stories together, nor a feel-good finale, and I found that very refreshing.

Stepping back onto one of the very streets depicted in the play, I became a character in my head and wondered about the lives and stories of the people I was passing by. I thought to myself that this is what community theatre should be: an inspiration to open our hearts to our neighbors and listen. This openness came full-circle and inspired the type of deep collaboration necessary to make a play like 167 Tongues a success.

For more info about the play, check out this NY Times article. The play has been picked up by Queens Theatre in the Park and will be produced there in the fall.

Nico--

Tags: Collaboration, Cross-cultural collaboration, Jackson Heights, Jackson Repertory, New York City, Queens, community theater, theater, theatre