Tonight is opening night! I would like to invite you my readers and friends to check out this play that I have had the honor to co-create with other wonderful artists. Tickets are available at www.artsboxoffice.com.

Here’s a couple of paragraphs about the play from the playwright,

Offers of Home is a theatrical exploration into North American ideals of home and self-security.

…

Leo (the protagonist) wants to prove something to us… that ‘home’ cannot hold a person together, no matter how hard we wish it could; that no matter how much we invest in the walls around us, they are doomed, eventually, to fall. However, when Leo’s delusion is broken; when a character from one of his stories becomes real and reaches out to him, Leo is forced to make a decision. Is home a place, a community, an idea? If we leave it, can it be found again? When it all falls down, where do we go… if not back home?

[from Panfish Productions website]

And here are my remarks in the program,

In this day and age of political correctness, we can’t use the term “homeless”, we must say “underhoused”. Heaven forbid we actually talk about helping people reclaim their sense of home, of safety, security and dignity. We say they are underhoused because we can get them a “house”: 4 walls and a roof over their head where they don’t have to be seen by anyone. But that is not what is needed. A home is needed: a place where one is cared for and loved, and can become healthy enough to offer that back. How difficult is that though for many people? We live in a culture where statistics rule and there is a logical justification for everything. The problem is that care and love are not logical concepts. They need relationship to carry them into our lives. And when we step out of ourselves for a moment, and connect with another person, the opportunity for care and love to grow begins; we are transformed, we cannot ignore them or ourselves. “The best thing a human being can do for another human being is love them.”

And here’s a little slideshow of various pictures taken throughout the rehearsal process…

