ABOUT THIS BOOK

In 2009, theatre artist Aaron Landsman was dragged by a friend to a city council meeting in Portland, Oregon. At first he was bored, but when a citizen dumped trash in front of the council in order to show how the city needed cleaning up, he was intrigued. He began attending local government meetings across the country, interviewing council members, staffers, activists, and other citizens. Out of this investigation, Landsman and director Mallory Catlett developed a participatory theatre piece called City Council Meeting.

The City We Make Together looks at how we make art with communities, how we perform power and who gets to play which roles, and how we might use creativity and rigorous inquiry to look at our structures of democracy anew.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Mallory Catlett is coartistic director of Mabou Mines, an associate artist at CultureHub, and artistic director of Restless Productions NYC. She lives in New York City.

Aaron Landsman is a theatre artist, writer, and teacher. He lives in New York City.

REVIEWS

“Following a structure that artfully replicates the political dramaturgy of a city council meeting, this lovely and poignant book joins the messiness of politics with the experiment of aesthetics. The elements of theatre turn out to be vehicles for better understanding the stakes of essential civic processes that we too often take for granted.”—Shannon Jackson, author, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics

“This book is a fantastic and unique examination of participatory art practices, the ethics of public engagement, and, most importantly, how to aim the power of imagination and collaboration toward the idea and practice of local democracy. A read I will return to many times.”—Michael Rohd, artist for civic imagination, Center for Performance and Civic Practice

“The City We Make Together is a book that asks what kinds of creative processes build mutual respect within and between communities, and how we honor the histories of our neighborhoods and our activism. Catlett and Landsman help us see the ways the work we are already doing can be made more visible and celebrated as art.”—Rick Lowe, artist, founder, Project Row Houses

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Prologue: Introducing Mr. Pete Colt

How to Use This Book

How We Got Here: Influences and Travels

What Is a City Council Meeting?

The Show

Part I: Orientation

The Orientation Video

The Room and Us in It: Making Spaces Play

Meet the Staff

A New Way to Act

The Arrival of Jim Findlay

Disclaimers: We Don’t Have to Agree to Get Something Done

Part II: Meeting

How the Meeting Works: An Overview

Act 1, Bismarck: Connie’s Retirement Speech

Act 2, San Antonio: Props, Paperwork, Testimony

Act 3, Houston: Raising the Stakes

Act 4, Open Testimony: Tempe, Oakland, and Portland,with a Detour to Audience Participation

Pete Colt

Part III: Intermission

Organizing at Home and on the Road

Paying for Time

Participant-Observer Interviews

Questions for Schematic Theatre

Part IV: Local Endings

Narrators and Translators

Houston: Eldorado Ballroom

Tempe: Smilez

New York City: The Ignorant Schoolmaster

San Francisco: Dwayne’s Last Show

Keene, New Hampshire: The Qualification

Afterword

Appendix: City Council Meeting Script

Notes

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