What’s the play about?

In the early 90′s I made a trip to New York. It’s a city that people all over the world flock to if they want to experience the great American dream. But I knew that I could never live there. The racial segregation of the city that has existed since it’s creation was alive and well. If you were wealthy and lived in Manhattan, you wouldn’t notice it. But take the drive out to Jamaica Queens, (as I had to every night) and it’s as clear as day. I was there for a week and every day, on the radio, there was a report of a taxi cab driver who had been shot and killed for whatever money they had in their pockets. I remember being horrified. I remember thinking that the city was in a state of crisis, and that nothing was being done. When life is so cheap that someone could die so randomly, and for so little, then society has abrogated its responsibility to the poor and disadvantaged. I returned to Toronto and I practically kissed the ground when I arrived. I was happy to return to a city that I believed would always be free of gun violence and racial segregation.

Twenty years later, I’m ashamed of my arrogance, I’m ashamed of my naivety and ignorance. Twenty years later, I’m living in a city where hundreds of thousands have been kicked off of welfare, where gangs run rampant, where innocent bystanders are shot and killed with chilling frequency. In New York in the 90′s you could die because someone wants to take money from you. In Toronto in 2008, you could die just because someone wants to fire a gun. The city is in crisis. The rage I feel is shared by many. There is a great desire to do something, but what can be done? How did we get here? And how do we get back to where we were? Is it even possible anymore?

Toronto the Good is a play about modern day Toronto. It’s an exploration of poverty, violence and race, and how that impacts our everyday lives. It’s a condemnation of the policies that have lead us here, and a call to all Canadians to change our society to create a better city and a better future.

The story is simple, a police officer is charged with racial profiling when she randomly pulls over a black male. But the case is complicated by the fact that a gun was found in his possession. A black lawyer, who has experienced racial profiling first hand, is chosen, by the Crown, to represent the police officer. And what follows is a complex journey where the personal and political collide.

But more than just a play, Toronto the Good is an opportunity to create dialogue about what’s going on, and to learn about how we got here. A web site is going to be created where anyone can leave a comment, videos can be created on You Tube that will be linked on the site, and a section of the site will be used for historical information on changes in public policy and social welfare, and how that has impacted the city and the province. We now live in an age where political theatre can become a phenomena, a meme, through which the lines between artist and audience are blurred. I do not want to create a static piece of theatre that is observed, I want to start a dialogue, a real, substantive dialogue, that can include citizens and policy makers. I don’t believe that theatre can change the world, but I believe that a play can create a conversation that resonates within a community, and that community can create change, if they choose to. If WE choose to.