The changing face of Oakland is natural subject matter for artists who reside in the East Bay city — what these changes portend, what strategies there are address them, and what one’s own role is in them.

These are some of the issues explored in “Overnight,” the first theater piece collaboratively devised by all the resident companies of the Flight Deck, the multidisciplinary arts center in downtown Oakland founded by Ragged Wing Ensemble three years ago.

Conceived by RWE executive director Anna Shneiderman, “Overnight” consists of three short plays responding to the same event — a high-rise building being erected in the neighborhood literally overnight. There is in fact a large market-rate apartment building going up on the site of an erstwhile parking lot on the same block as the Flight Deck, but not quite so quickly.

The first section is Theatre Aluminous’ “Talk to Me,” written by RWE core artist Sango Tajima and directed by Aluminous founder Michael French. A stammering homeless graffiti artist (Imari Anderson as a vulnerable visionary) is trying to create a mural on the new building and the immigrant janitor (a skittish and heavily accented Lily Tung Crystal) is afraid she’ll lose her job if she doesn’t drive him off. Both people are left out of the new Oakland the building represents. They need to have a dialogue to find common ground, and of course they do that. Still, the situation seems forced, never quite providing a plausible motivation for them to make the effort to connect in the first place.

Written and directed by Addie Ulrey, Ragged Wing’s installment, “Manifest,” takes place in and around a trendy coffee shop across the street from the new building. Alex (amusingly anxious Fenner) adores the coffee there, but feels terribly guilty frequenting the place, as if every cappuccino she orders further gentrifies the city. It doesn’t help that her girlfriend, Lourdes (amiable, head-in-the-clouds Anna Maria Luera) has fond memories of the neighborhood joint that the new cafe replaced. In fact, she spends her days fishing memories out of the air and putting them in plastic bags. Their friend Lee (Venus Morris as an exasperated go-getter) is in town trying to get low-income housing built and is aghast at this monolith that just appeared. The highlight of the whole evening is Emmy Pierce and Mary Matabor as an idly observing chorus of hilariously blase baristas.

Especially intriguing is the Lower Bottom Playaz’ “Ticky. Ticky. Boom!,” written and directed by founding director Ayodele Nzinga. The play depicts God (serenely cryptic Reginald Wilkins) and a disciple (aggressively accusatory Stanley Hunt) as homeless people in conspicuously pristine white garments, looking for someone to stop tacitly accepting injustice and actually help. Megan Lipari seems like an unlikely prospect as Becky, a well-off but newly aimless young white woman surprised to become the object of their impromptu interrogation. Poetic and ambiguous, the piece proceeds at a stately pace toward a striking but perplexing ending.

Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre’s dance interludes bookending the scenes are engaging, athletic and mysterious, choreographed by Gritty City founder Lindsay Krumbein to hypnotically atmospheric music by Kev Choice. Three young performers walk as if balancing on beams, or stand on one leg and move as if flying. In one section, Que’Aire Anderson and Ayah Dominique let their bodies go limp as Alex Trono wearily carries them around and positions them carefully on sections of the scenery. Lili Fore’s set of large gray shards jutting at odd angles evokes a sense of a city in upheaval, especially when accentuated by Marc-Eddy Loriston’s video projections.

No one piece quite stands on its own as an individual narrative, but none has to. The evening functions as a patchwork picture of diverse perspectives providing more food for thought than answers. It’s a lot like Oakland in that respect.

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

‘OVERNIGHT’

By Anna Shneiderman, Sango Tajima, Addie Ulrey and Ayodele Nzinga, presented by Ragged Wing Ensemble, the Lower Bottom Playaz, Theatre Aluminous and Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre

Through: April 22

Where: The Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakland

Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission

Tickets: $25-$45; www.raggedwing.org