Episode 56
Episode 56: Pillsbury House + Theatre - Chapter 2
This is the second chapter of the Pillsbury House + Theatre story. At the corner of George Floyd Square & the Pandemic, PH+T is breaking the community development mold using the power of the arts & culture to stimulate community health, ownership & justice.
Missed Chapter 1? Go To CSCW EP 55, Pillsbury House + Theater Chapter 1
BIO’s
Signe V. Harriday is Artistic Producing Director at Pillsbury House + Theatre. Signe is a fierce visionary and powerful storyteller who crafts theatre that awakens our individual and collective humanity. As a director, multidisciplinary artist, activist, and facilitator, she uses theatre as a catalyst to ask questions about who we are and who we are in relation to each other.Past accomplishments include:
Associate Company Member of Pillsbury House Theatre.
Co-founder of Million Artist Movement, a collective of artists committed to Black liberation.
Co-founder of the award-winning synchronized swimming team, The Subversive Sirens.
Founder of Rootsprings Coop, a retreat center for BIPOC artists/activists/healers.
Co-founder of MaMa mOsAiC, a women of color theater company whose mission is to evoke positive social change through female centered work.
Core team member of REP Community Partners.
Signe earned her MFA in Acting at the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard and Moscow Art Theatre.
Current projects: Director of Bridgforth’s bull-jean stories, Associate Director of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower Opera, Choreography for Love of Silver Water, Playwright for Dysmorphia. Recent directing credits: Dining with the Ancestors, Fannie Lou Hammer Speak On It, Hidden Heroes
Noël Raymond is the Co-Artistic Managing Director at Pillsbury House + Theater. Noël holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Minnesota and a BFA from Ithaca College in New York. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the Multicultural Development Center and the Burning House Group Theatre Company which she co-founded in 1993. She is also a company member of Carlyle Brown and Company. She has taught acting classes and theatre movement in multiple settings to children, college students and adults with developmental disabilities.
Noël is an Equity actor who has performed with Pillsbury House Theatre, the Burning House Group, the Guthrie Theater, Penumbra Theatre, Bryant Lake Bowl, and Minnesota Festival Theatres in Minnesota as well as the Hangar Theatre in New York. Noël’s directing credits include Underneath the Lintel, An Almost Holy Picture, Far Away, Angels in America: Parts I and II, and [sic] at Pillsbury House Theatre, From Shadows to Light at Theatre Mu, The BI Show with MaMa mOsAiC, and multiple staged readings and workshops through the Playwrights’ Center, among others. Noël has served on numerous panels including TCG/American Theatre, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Playwright’s Center and United Arts, to name a few.
Mike Hoyt: Mike is a visual artist and Pillsbury’s Creative Community Liason. For nearly twenty years he has been producing, managing, and directing arts-based community development projects and youth development programs, while making his own art in his community. Creating and facilitating unique shared experiences that connect diverse and often non traditional art audiences drive his art practice. Hoyt’s work has been exhibited locally and abroad at the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Arts At Marks Garage in Honolulu, University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Pillsbury House + Theatre, Soap Factory, Soo Visual Arts Center, Intermedia Arts, Franconia Sculpture Park, Art Shanty Projects, and the Walker Art Center among others. He has received awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board, a Northern Lights.mn Art(ists) on the Verge Fellowship, a Jerome Visual Artist Fellowship, and a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship.
Hoyt has the added benefit of raising a family three blocks from PH+T and is honored to have the opportunity to engage local artists and community members in creative practice towards the development of a vibrant and healthy community for all of its members.
Notable Mentions: Chapter 2
Pillsbury House, Epic Program: The EPIC Program, based at the Pillsbury House, is all about skill building, involvement in our community and making memories. Volunteering is practice that provides program participants a chance to gain and strengthen work skills while also helping others and integrating in the community. At People Serving People, EPIC helps with the janitorial services and that’s a big job.
Heather McGee's book, The Sum of Us, Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?
Bill Strickland, Pittsburgh, PA, Manchester Craftsman's Guild: Bill Strickland tells a quiet and astonishing tale of redemption through arts, music, and unlikely partnerships.
Read transcript
Andrea Jenkins, Minneapolis City Council President: Andrea Jenkins made history in 2017 as the first African American openly trans woman to be elected to office in the United States. Now serving as Council President, she is also a writer, performance artist, poet and transgender activist.
KRSM, Minneapolis: KRSM is a low-power FM radio station based out of the Phillips neighborhood in South Minneapolis. Broadcasting at 98.9 FM, this is a hyper-local platform for amplifying the voices, stories, cultures, and conversations happening in our neighborhoods. Our focus is on communities that are marginalized, misrepresented, and erased by traditional media. For example, our schedule features shows in 6 different languages (English, Spanish, Somali, Ojibwe, Hmong, and Haitian Creole), and we air 10 hours of programming each week by Indigenous hosts.
North News, Minneapolis: North News, founded in 1991, is the premiere print community news source in North Minneapolis.
Breaking Ice, Pillsbury House + Theatre: Breaking Ice performances explore how systemic inequities, implicit bias and common misperceptions show up in relationships, creating uncomfortable interactions that inhibit innovation, motivation and productivity in the workplace.
See also CSCW EP 55, Pillsbury House + Theatre Chapter 1 Show Notes
Transcript
Pillsbury House + Theatre Chapter 2
[:[00:00:23] Bill Cleveland: That was producing director, Signe Harriday at Pillsbury House + Theatre, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the first of two episodes we're sharing on this remarkable arts-based community development agency. In this excerpt, she was describing what she sees as the unique power of Pillsbury the place, it's culturally infused practice, and the community it serves. In this episode, we'll explore how the past two tumultuous years of the pandemic, and the continuing impact of George Floyd's murder have affected Pillsbury House and the community it serves. We'll also hear how these momentous events are helping shape what comes next for the Pillsbury story.
e, our guests for this spring:This is Change the Story / Change the World. My name is Bill Cleveland.
Part Four. The Pivot.
So, Pillsbury has evolved over the past decade or so to become an innovative groundbreaking center for arts-based community development and social services. But, over the past two really long years, the foundation of your work, the social aspect of “social service” has taken a tremendous hit. The pandemic for sure. People being together spontaneously connecting. But also, as you said, historic events that have happened in many cities and neighborhoods, particularly yours, where the whole question of: Who are my people? Where can I be safe? What is a trustworthy, environment? are in question. One of the things about art making, particularly for performative art making, is that people do have to think about, how to make a space safe for what's going to happen in it, whether it's a neighborhood or a theater.
Could you talk a little bit about the extraordinary history that we have lived through over the last couple of years, and its impact on what your work has been.
[:And having to intentionally make time for every conversation, and engineer, every gathering has meant that you lose all of those tiny moments that happen. You know, a a lot of the things that Mike talks about, which are a huge part of the richness of what this community, what this fabric is right, is that it is because a little kid and one of the adults in the Epic Program happen to meet in the lobby and smile at each other. That's the spark that makes my day. And then that gives me a thought that launches into another thing. If you don't have all of those opportunities, then you are in a world where you're having to engineer all of the things.
And that's, I think what we… the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, right? So, if you have to design each part, then you don't get that wholeness. And I think we, the, I think we're seeing it everywhere, the fraying of the social fabric and the loss of relationships and the loss of some of the other smaller institutions and, the Exodus of a lot of artists from the field, because there was no work.
I mean, you know, there's a lot and, but we've been here. we've been working and, I think at the same time, have discovered some new ways to do things that are super beneficial
[:I do think what we've done over the last few years is only possible because of the relationships that we've had. And I think there's a lot of success, and a lot of celebration, and a lot of joy, even amidst all of the difficulties that we've had. Even when a program was delayed, it was not canceled. Even when a fellowship, had to be extended over a period of time, because we weren't able to fulfill our commitments that we were able to just stay in relationship. And I think that's what that's what Mike was talking about early on is he referenced the article that he read. To me, that is about like how we center relationships
[:[00:07:10] Mike Hoyt: Yeah, this is Mike speaking. I feel like we all recognize that whatever post pandemic means, the aftereffects and the impacts of the compounding pandemics are gonna be felt in communities like ours for a much longer period.
And, you know, I think the past couple years, we've still been here, you know, in a way, being called the Pillsbury House, we are a house. We're still living here. The childcare never shut down. the adults in our day program were pretty much here, throughout.
[:And locally, Yeah, and just speaking to, an artist that we partner quite a bit, and who's just a brilliant artist, Manqwe (Indosi) who's done so much in our community is working on a new project for the area around George Floyd Square, and have been, trying to do a lot of outreach to neighbors over the past couple months, and met, a native elder who lives right next to George Floyd Square.
There's a cemetery, a public art project there about all the people that have been murdered by the police. And he lives adjacent to that. And he's got banners up on his fences, and he is very active. But, he reached out to Manqwe cuz he's building a sweat lodge that is specifically designed for the Bloods who kind of control George Floyd square, and the police, he wants to, to have a sweat lodge for the police and the bloods to be in, in sweat together. it's like…
[:[00:09:12] MH: …pretty intense, like that pretty amazing, you know, and he doesn't know like, will anyone come, or what, but he's building it. And I think that exists here regardless of us, but also in relationship to us.
And that's the spirit and the power of the people in this neighborhood and community. So, I don't know how it'll that'll happen. And it's amazing though.
[:So, you've been working at the epicenter, so to speak. And I'm wondering how have these upheavals, and what you've learned alongside the community affected your relationships with your art and social service colleagues. And the broader region.
NR: What's really interesting to me, about the last couple of years is that there was a time when, because we were so community embedded, that our reputation as community meant somehow amateur or, not as excellent. There's been a switch. I think our work has spoken for itself in terms of quality, but, that relationship to community has a currency and a, traction. People in the large, white-led institutions, are recognizing the value of that kind of relationship and embeddedness in community, in a new kind of way that is interesting in terms of then the kinds of conversations that we're able to have with the larger institutions and the status shift --- from the way we're being approached as having a particular level of expertise and excellence at something that is more desirable. But it's been a shift over the last couple of years for sure.
[:[00:11:54] NR: It's their, their place. Yeah.
[:I really have a big question for people about like, where, when are you gonna put your money, where your mouth, and your heart says you wanna be? And I think that this community has been systemically disinvested. And when you think it about where resources are allocated, what projects get funded. We get some resources, but, certainly not to the measure of the work that we do or the people that we serve or the community that we're in. And I think we have a, there is a moral, wake up, call.
[:[00:13:49] SH: Well and being exploited, oftentimes being exploited, like I'll say, I feel like how many times have organizations like ours done something and somebody has said, “Oh, that's cool. I'm gonna do that too.” And then their project gets funded while we don't, or…
[:[00:14:11] SH: I would even say that the gap for me is not so much a gap as much as it is a canyon between the realities of the different worlds that we live in. And on one side of the canyon are, are resources, are, are practices that continue a colonist way of being, which is to take ownership of, which is to exploit, to take credit for, to leverage to your own self-interest, and gain, is the American dream, the myth of meritocracy, that's all over there.
And then I think on the other side of the canyon are the people who were trying to survive, who are doing it with like, grace, and love, and joy, and art, and each other that I think, and to your point, I think what you're trying to say, Bill is that like the other side of the canyon sees, that I think folks who, particularly folks who are entrenched in a system that is inherently white supremacist, they see that is, not good for white people.
[:How can we be in righter relationship with the healing of all? cuz you know, James Baldwin, and so many other people have said it, “So well, no, one's gonna get free until everybody's free.” And so, it is complex, but I do think that there are opportunities for us to do things differently. And I would invite people to really be bold about how you think about the agency that you have to support the community where you are.
[:[00:16:15] SH: Yes.
[:NR: I also think, the words, partnership and collaboration get used a lot. And I think we actually know how to partner in a way that honors all of the labor that's being put in, and gives everybody a stake, and a return on what, the energy that's happening, and accrues benefit outside of that too. And that's a huge asset. And I see that not being the case in a lot of the larger arts institutions. And we've been approached to partner in ways that have felt really extractive, and really just about having the community credential, but not actually honoring the labor, and what it means for us to do the work of gathering and supporting community and participating in whatever the thing is.
[:And so, final questions. Let's start with just what's on the horizon for Pillsbury House, as it navigates these uncertain waters.
[:[00:18:22] NR: We are increasing our footprint in the neighborhood and trying to do that carefully, and with full open eyes about, what taking up more space means and, in order to make more space available, And to do more things that support this community in living the lives that they imagine for themselves and their families and their neighbors.
[:[00:18:55] Bill Strickland: I went out and hired a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect. And I asked him to build me a world class center in the worst neighborhood in Pittsburgh. And my building was the scale model for the Pittsburgh airport.
And when you come to Pittsburgh, and you're all invited, you'll be flying into the blown-up version of my building. That's the building. Built in a tough neighborhood where people have been given up for dead. And my view is that if you want to involve yourself in the life of people who have been given up on, you have to look like the solution and not the problem.
As you can see, it has a fountain in the courtyard. And the reason it has a fountain in the courtyard is because I think that welfare mothers and at risk kids and ex steel workers deserve a fountain in their life. And so, the first thing that you see in my center in the springtime is water that greets you, water is life and water of human possibility, and it sets an attitude and expectation about how you feel about people before you ever give 'em a speech.
[:[00:20:53] NR: And we're gonna do it in relationship with Andrea Jenkins, our City Council President, our, all of our local policy makers, our neighborhood, all of our neighbors, all of our participants, all of our artists.
[:[00:21:14] SH: I'm excited that we continue to be a place where people who have been coming for decades upon decades, continue to want to come back and feel like this is home. And I'm excited by new people who are coming in, who want to make this place, their home, and our ability to keep our arms wide, our hearts open and our doors open to both of those kinds of folks.
And we see that in cool collaborations with artists. We see that in new programs, we see that in, in ways to create pathways for artists beyond what they are developing here and helping to launch their work into other communities and with other organizations and being a conduit in their big lives.
I think that's what gets me excited.
[:One of the other, sort of, internal exciting things that has changed over the past year or so is, you know, being part of Pillsbury United communities, which is a larger distributed nonprofit organization, which has, several narrative enterprises, right?
So, the theater is considered one of them, but we have a low watt radio station, KRSM, there's North News, which is, newspaper produced by, high schoolers at North High. And we are partnering with all of those other enterprises to create more of a through line, and intentional strategic relationship with all of the narrative parts of the organization, ultimately to partner with our policy arm. So, there's, this interesting opportunity around how storytelling and narrative from community also can work to shape policy mainly in a state and local level.
[:[00:22:25] : Okay. Bye bye byebye. Bye.
[:[00:22:31] SH: I hope so. and if you know anyone, who can write million dollar checks, you just send 'em my way.
[:Yeah. And speaking of lines, forming, as I mentioned, there's another important chapter in the continuing Pillsbury saga that we'll be coming back to early next year. That program called Breaking Ice is Pillsbury's 20-year, award-winning theater program that has been breaking ice for courageous and productive dialogue around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all manner of workplaces across the country. So, we'll let you know when that shows up on our schedule.
For those of you who have been with us for the past two Pillsbury House + Theatre episodes. Thank you for tuning in. If you missed that first episode, you'll find that show, number 55, at your preferred podcast provider site. You'll also find the link in this episode's show notes.
Change the Story/ Change the World is a production of the Center for the Study of Art and Community. It's written and hosted by me, Bill Cleveland, our theme and soundscape are by these stupendously talented Judy Munsen, our text editing is by Andre Nnebe. Our sound effects come from free sound.com and our inspiration rises up from the spectral and lurking presence of UKE 235. If you have any comments to share or suggestions for guests, drop us a line at CSAC@artandcommunity.com. Until next time, stay well, do good and spread the good word.
