Theatre, Civic Health and Challenging Conversations

(or, how do we talk about what we need to be talking about, even when not everyone wants to talk about it))

I’ve spent the past three years working on a touring theatre project in Montana. The timing of the tour’s launch, Fall 2024, coincided with yet another inflection point in America’s journey towards polarization and social isolation. Our communities face twin, related crises- the loneliness epidemic and a movement towards authoritarianism facilitated by a lack of trust in institutions and neighbors. At the heart of both crises is a need for more social connection. Tackling this need requires varied interventions, disruptions and strategies- no one approach will work alone. But theatre is one powerful approach. As a theatre maker and facilitator, over the last several decades I’ve co-designed projects that aim to bolster social connection by building trust and offering opportunities for public conversation.

I find that most people (really- most people) are surprisingly open to shared experiences alongside neighbors, and strangers, when those experiences have a clear purpose and a thoughtful, joyful process. An experience doesn’t have to venture into fraught topics to be valuable in highly partisan times; spending time together doing just about anything can increase social bonds. But when the topic you’re building experiences around can in itself activate differing values and ideologies and lead to conflict, you can find yourself, in real time, at the intersection of social isolation, lack of trust and polarization. How do you then chart a productive, ethical course towards your aim of social connection amidst the reality of colliding perspectives? How do we do that?

At every stop on our tour, our show includes a scene called “Can we agree on that?” It is for us an attempt to tackle that question.

State of Mind

When we started developing State of Mind, a theatre and public dialogue project about Behavioral Health and Mental Health (BH/MH) that, by design, would tour small, rural, frequently conservative Montana communities, we knew there was a particular dilemma the project would encounter. LGBTQIA+ community members are among the most vulnerable when it comes to BH/MH issues, especially LGBTQIA+ youth; they are also among our most politicized residents, often subject to legislative oppression, familial antagonism and hateful propaganda. To make theatre that intends to responsibly and meaningfully address BH/MH, this community and the discourse surrounding the lives of its members needs to be present; but to use theatre to build local, cross-partisan coalition that aims to increase positive BH/MH outcomes for all local residents, we need to be in the room. So we needed to figure out how to navigate risk, conscience and purpose. We needed to make choices aligned with our values; and, we needed to not be tossed out of the spaces into which we had secured invitations.

Project Context: Montana

Health

Behavioral and Mental health in Montana is in a state of crisis. A combination of factors ranging from economic despair to social isolation, from generational trauma to cultures of stoicism and silence, all contribute to frequently polarized policy debates, ongoing inequities of access to services and resources, and most significantly, individuals and communities suffering, visibly and invisibly. Montana sits consistently near the nation’s statistical high, per capita, for suicide, addiction and depression while our available resources and resident proximity to those resources sit near the bottom.

Politics

Donald Trump won 58 % of Montana’s popular vote in the 2024 election; however, he won 51 of 56 Counties. The statistically close margin statewide does not reflect the actual margin in specific communities across much of the state- the 42% of the state’s population who did not vote for President Trump mostly represents the larger population and ideological leanings in the 5 Counties that opposed Trump’s election. The 2024 election also brought about the unseating of Democratic Senator Jon Tester, giving Montana for the first time in decades an entirely Republican Congressional Delegation alongside a Republican Governor, both Republican chambers in the State Legislature, and a Republican Secretary of State and Attorney General.

Legislation

The last ten years have seen a rise in anti-LGBTQIA+ legislative activity across the nation. Montana, like other Republican-led states, is no exception. Movement Advancement Project, an independent non-partisan think tank, gives every state an equality ranking through a combined sexual orientation and gender identity policy tally. Montana receives -3.75 out of a possible 49 points, resulting in what they formally categorize as “a negative statewide equality ranking”.

Goals

Our work began in the Fall of 2022. We set out to build relationships and learn about the BH/MH landscape across the state. We partnered with school districts, public health departments, advocacy organizations, health and service providers, statewide associations, activists, and youth networks. We listened, and through project design sessions and workshops, we started to conceive the project’s blueprint. One of our first steps was to set a very specific set of goals that we, and all our partners and collaborators, could use as a shared compass.

With a commitment to center the needs of our state’s most vulnerable residents, State of Mind aims to shift culture around behavioral health in Montana by:

1) Making local behavioral health resources more visible;

2) Strengthening local networks of advocates, providers, educators and leaders;

3) Tackling stigmas around seeking mental and behavioral health support;

4) Activating youth voices in the identification of local needs and visions;

5) Exploring & normalizing care strategies for friends, family, and neighbors;

6);Listening. Bringing local perspectives into statewide conversations.

Every creative, logistical and programmatic decision would run through these goals over several years, so they needed to feel comprehensive and rooted in the project’s core values. As we set to work making the show, these goals and our commitment were with us, every day.

My own goal as an artist beyond the specific topic of behavioral health and any one particular place or context, is focused on civic imagination- our capacity as communities to be in collaborative, creative dialogue about our challenges and our futures. Civic Imagination requires being able to disagree, and stay in conversation, especially when wrestling with complex issues where values, policy and personal experience are all at play. It requires trust; so I brought to this project a commitment to try and design every workshop, every meeting, every performance, every event, for maximum trust-building potential. Which means sometimes figuring out how to frame, or reframe, divisive conversations in ways that feel equally necessary and inviting.

The Show

Kendra Mylnechuk Potter, Jackie Vetter & Mack Momberg in a performance Fall 2024

Although we are conducting workshops and community gatherings as part of our touring residencies, at the heart of State of Mind’s strategy to accomplish our goals is our show, also called State of Mind. It’s an 80-minute participatory theatre event. It’s not quite a play, as we tell audiences, because what we created and tour doesn’t tell a single story and it doesn’t have a set of characters to follow across the evening. We describe it as a live album. It has fifteen tracks, a side A and a side B; the audience acts as DJ- they choose which track we’ll perform next, so the actors never know what’s coming. A record player sits center stage, and vinyl scores the evening. The tracks are a mix of monologues, scenes, dance, participation and even karaoke. Each track deals with a different aspect or issue of BH/MH, and each attempts to inform, compel, engage and entertain. We knew one track, at least, had to head straight into how this issue impacts the state’s LGBTQIA+ communities.

State of Mind was devised. That means it was created collectively. Some of it I wrote and we explored/refined as an ensemble of co-creators; some of it was generated through conversation and improvisation, and then constructed in the room. So, who was in that room, and what resources we had access to in our creative process, was important. Our core team included actors, writers, directors, counselors, facilitators and social workers. We also relied on an expanded circle of responsive collaborators that included staff from school districts, university departments in various mental health and public health disciplines, LGBTQIA+ centers, and statewide LGBTQIA+ & behavioral health advocacy and service organizations. I could, and frequently did, reach out to this expanded circle. I interviewed them, repeatedly. I emailed them material and asked for a response and review. I ran ideas by them in one-on-one conversations and group zoom calls. Additionally, members of our core team hold lived experience, personal identity, personal familial connection and area expertise around and in LGBTQIA+ issues, and that was crucial to our exploration and decision-making process about the material we would include in the show.

Audience

The show is free and takes place in a community venue, not a theatre. Think elks hall, fairground, museum, library, HS cafetorium. Many of the towns we visit have a population under 2000 people; in one town of 427, 13% of the town came out for a community meal and the performance. The show is a publicly advertised theatre event- its not a lecture or workshop about mental health, it's not a school event. But, in addition to local press (radio, newspaper, facebook), the people getting the word out are most often people in the health, education and local government worlds, so the audience does skew towards folks already interested in the subject. The disruptor of that dynamic is that after we do a workshop with High School students earlier in the day, the students often want to come to that evening’s performance, and they bring their families. This complicates the audience's make-up in a way that’s important, and intentional.

Building Track 10

One of the first things a counselor said to us- a counselor who specifically works via zoom with LGBTQIA+ youth who live in rural, mostly conservative communities- was this: don’t put a character with that identity onstage in your show. This took me, and us, by surprise. I assumed the opposite- that to respect the lived experience of diverse, vulnerable people in our communities meant representing their stories, and their bodies, in our show. I was told, over and over again- no. To go into some of the places we’ll go, where there will no doubt be people, young and old, who self-identify as LGBTQIA+ but who do not live openly in this identity, placing them in the story was to risk their well-being, and their safety. We were advised, strongly, to find another way to start the conversation.

We were advised to show the tensions around this issue, but not to leave an audience with the feeling that the challenges people faced were insurmountable. We were advised to be aware of the politics but not to lean into them in a way that could be construed as side-taking or villainizing. We were advised to not show anyone in crisis, but make clear that crisis occurs. We were advised to show hope, but not patronize audiences by showing easy reconciliation that felt emotionally false. We were advised to be trauma-informed; we were advised to not exploit trauma for dramatic value. I struggled, and wrote lots of versions that didn’t work. I kept coming back to the question- “what are we trying to do here? I know the goals of the project, and I know we’re navigating volatile public discourse- what are we trying to do, exactly?”

And what I eventually found my way to, in dialogue with our team in the room, and with our expanded circle, was a very specific intent: we want to put the politics and emotion of this vulnerable community’s relationship to this issue, in the context of a conversation not just about behavioral and mental health, but in the context of disagreement, and distraction, and what those two things do to our ability, our actual ability, to see and take care of our families and neighbors. What happens when we can’t talk about care because we’re caught in right and wrong? What happens when we can’t imagine community health because we’re caught in a cycle of judgement and blame? Can we craft a scene, a simple scene between two people, who care about each other, and whose relationship to each other has been damaged by their inability to disagree and stay in relation to each other? And, can we surround that scene with text, in the show, that shares our belief, informed by research, data and statewide relationship-building, that centering care might be a way to build trust and stay in hard, necessary conversations as we attempt to make policy that can work for everyone?

We started to shape the story of the scene, and I started to write the frame around the scene. We read it, reworked it, played it out, changed it around. One moment of discovery occurred when we had visitors in the rehearsal room from our expanded circle and we played out the central conflict two characters were experiencing, and the scene ended, emotionally raw, and a visitor (who’s a counselor) said- “I just want to see them hug right now!” And her colleague, another counselor, immediately said- “there’s no way they would hug right now!” And we all knew- that desire, and that response, were both central to the conversation we were trying to capture and prompt. So the scene, and its frame, changed again.

Below is the text of the scene that tours as Track 10 in our 15 track show. It's on Side B (basically, our Act 2), which means it doesn’t occur until at least 45 minutes into our time with our audience. Because they, the audience, DJ the show, we never know exactly when on Side B it will get chosen, but we do know that by the time we perform it, we’ve built a relationship with them. One of our big lessons this past year on the road, through our workshops and performance and every community meeting we co-host, has been: asking folks to listen to us, to give us generous attention, always goes better if we’ve listened and built a relationship first. In Track 10, we’re asking for that generous attention, and it needs to be earned. So we don’t start with it; we get there, over time.

Our show has a three actor cast. We have a rotating team of ten performers, so the roles you read below shift gender and racial identity as the actors rotate in and out of performances.

Octavio Jimenez with an audience mid-show

Track 10

Can we agree on that

Two actors stand next to each other facing the audience;

They speak directly to them.

Actor 1

There is a provider shortage in Montana.

Actor 2

We know that.

Actor 1

There are not enough trained professionals.

Actor 2

If everyone in the state who needed behavioral health care tried to get it,

there are not enough people to give it.

Actor 1

But we’re not there-

Everyone who needs it doesn’t try to get it.

Actor 2

We did the ABCs.

Actor 1

There’s lots of reasons.

Actor 2

M for money,

S for stigma.

Actor 1

Those are two of the big ones.

Actor 2

But even with all those reasons,

there are people who are more vulnerable than others

to needing care.

Actor 1

And there are disagreements, that sometimes prevent us from doing something about that.

Actor 2

Now, the two of us-

(gestures to self and Actor1)

we’re gonna be two people, inside a community center, helping get a barbecue ready for a bunch of folks waiting outside.

We’re friends-or, we were.

Here we go.

They each take 3 steps, away from each other.

Actor 1, now Sam, faces Actor 2, now Marty.

Marty faces away

Sam (Actor 1)

You got everything you need over there?

Marty (Actor 2)

Turning to face Sam

Oh yeah. I got the buns and the ketchup, I’ve got it all.

Sam

Ok- you need a hand getting it outside?

Marty

No, I'm alright. I can manage.

Sam

Ok-is Abby here?

Marty

No- no, she’s at home.

Sam

Oh, I was hoping I'd see her here. It's been a while.

Marty

Yes, it has. How’s Ella?

Sam

She’s good, thank you for asking.

Everything ok, with Abby?

Marty

Sure, it's ok. She’s had a rough summer, is all.

Sam

Oh- I’m sorry to hear that.

Marty

Well. Alright, thank you.

Sam

What?

Marty

Nothing, Sam.

Sam

No- what?

Marty

Sam- you haven’t talked to me, for months.

Sam

It’s been so busy this summer, that’s all- I-

Marty

I know you feel bad- I just wish we could talk about it.

pause

Sam

I didn’t have a choice, you know.

Marty

Of course you had a choice.

Sam

I had to vote my conscience.

Marty

When your committee decided the school couldn’t have a gay/straight alliance, I wish your conscience was thinking about Abby.

Sam

You think I wasn’t?

But it's not right, Marty-

Marty

Sam-

Sam

I love you, I love Abby- but I cannot support something I don’t believe in.

Marty

These kids are scared, Sam. At home, at school, they feel like they don’t belong. They’re lonely. They should feel welcome, somewhere. They need care.

Sam

A school’s job is to care about learning- not to literally care for our kids, Marty. And since when is a club, care?

Marty

Kids can’t learn if they don’t feel safe!

If a club helps them get through the day, and makes learning, possible- that’s care.

Sam

You know, Abby’s not the only kid in town with something she’s dealing with- lots of kids, lots of families, are struggling. We all struggle. But, we don’t all get clubs.

Marty

Maybe we should all get clubs! What’s wrong with asking? These kids needed some help, and they asked.

Sam

That’s what family is for.

Marty

Sam, two of the kids who were trying to get that club, they’re not even allowed in their own houses. One of them’s at our house! They drop out of school, they leave town. We’re losing them- they lose themselves. Is it worth it?

Sam

Marty, I hear what you are saying- I do- but it's just- it's wrong. It just is.

pause

Marty

My daughter is not wrong, Sam. There is nothing wrong with her.

Sam

I didn’t mean-

Marty

Nothing at all.

Sam

Marty, I didn’t mean-

Marty

Please tell Ella that she should come by some time-

Abby would love to see her.

Pause

We miss you both.

They look at each other

Actor 3 comes forward and stands between them, looks at them, and then speaks to the audience

Actor 3

If we had them hug right now, a lot of you, you wouldn’t believe it.

It would probably seem more real if one of them stormed off, angry.

If the division between them seemed impossible to bridge.

But that’s not the scene we want to show.

Actor 1 turns to audience

Actor 1 (Sam)

I’m playing a parent who has a strong opinion, and that other character, she disagreed with me.

Actor 2 turns to the audience

Actor 2 (Marty)

I disagreed with her.

Actor 3

But the scene, its about care- and to talk about care, we can’t avoid the disagreements that make that conversation difficult.

Actor 1

We probably won’t suddenly agree.

Actor 2

That probably won’t happen.

Actor 3

But what about care- what it means, who gets it?

Actor 1

There is a provider shortage in Montana.

Actor 2

If everyone in the state who needed behavioral health care tried to get it,

there are not enough people to give it.

Actor 1

But we’re not there-

Actor 2

Everyone who needs it doesn’t try to get it.

Actor 1

And there are people who are more vulnerable than others

Actor 3

to needing care.

Actor 2

To having life factors

Actor 3

History factors

Actor 1

Social factors

Actor 2

That affect how much they need care,

Actor 3

And how difficult it is to get it.

Actor 1

To access it.

Actor 2

Indigenous people.

Actor 3

Gay, lesbian, queer,and trans youth.

Actor 1

People who are unhoused.

Actor 2

People who are or have been incarcerated.

Actor 3

These neighbors of ours-

Actor 1

because wherever we live,

some of these folks are our neighbors-

Actor 2

these vulnerable neighbors of ours

Actor 3

we don’t talk about them a lot.

Actor 1

Because lots of times, we don’t know what to say.

Actor 2

So we don’t say anything.

Actor 1

We leave some neighbors out.

Actor 3

And if we know, statistically, who is most in need of care,

Actor 1

shouldn’t we make sure that every choice we make

Actor 2

takes extra care to care for those neighbors?

Actor 3

Whatever we disagree on

Actor 1

when we talk policy

Actor 2

and religion

Actor 3

and funding

Actor 1

and right and wrong,

Actor 2

what might happen if we agreed on the importance of care

Actor 3

for everyone?

—An actor then says-

“Next Track”,

and the audience DJs where the show goes next.

Jackie Vetter in character talking with an audience member mid-show

Response, Dialogue & Coalition

I am torn- I like what we made, and I wish it went further.

I wish it was braver in its approach to a volatile conversation, but I know pushing too hard would lose us the ability to be in the room. I wish it were more daring artistically, but accessibility and clarity feel like the priority. I can stand by its tricky navigation of risk, conscience and purpose, and I sometimes worry it lands too far on the side of safety.

We’ve had audiences respond to this scene with stoney silence, we’ve had audiences break out into rousing applause, and we’ve had the in between. We don’t do a post-show talkback; we invite audiences to a community gathering (snacks on us) that we’ll be co-hosting the next morning with local health providers, public officials and education leaders (many of whom are at the show).

But even without a formal talkback, after the performance, “Can we agree on that?” often comes up. Several times, I’ve been approached, quietly, by an elder in the community who takes me aside and says something like- “I’ve lived here my whole life, and being myself hasn’t been easy- thanks for putting me up there in the conversation.” I’ve had parents come up and quietly say- “my kid needed to see that, and we needed our neighbors to see it- thank you.” Once, someone said- “I like the show, but did you have to be political with that one scene?” And the person with them said- “That wasn’t political- that was people.” The show’s co-director Michael Legg (Artistic Director of Montana Repertory Theater) has been rigorous in rehearsal reminding the actors that if the scene plays as straight antagonism, it plays as political- if it plays as two friends who care about each other, and don’t understand why the other person doesn’t understand their point of view, it plays as relational. Politics vs people.

The community gathering that takes place on the following morning is a central part of State of Mind. An overarching purpose of the tour, a purpose that really brings the project goals and my personal goals into alignment, is coalition- to use our residencies across Montana as an opportunity to help existing local BH/MH coalitions stitch closer together; to expand those coalitions to include new stakeholders; and to help these expanding circles think strategically about their work, their aims, and their potential collaborations. These gatherings have included some remarkable moments: law enforcement and public health officials have realized they could pool state and county dollars and afford new community resources; principals have learned about programs their students can access; non-profits have built new strategies alongside school employees to better advocate with school board members who oppose mental health support in schools; senior living facility leaders have discovered youth interest for intergenerational wellness activities, and new programs have been imagined.

At this gathering, someone inevitably brings up Track 10- they say, “You know, that scene where those two parents were talking about their kids”…and it opens up a space to discuss tensions and beliefs and action. And sometimes we get to ask- does disagreement prevent people from coming together to work on care in this community? How and when does it do that? How does that feel? What do you think about that? What might be possible, if that didn’t happen?

State of Mind uses theatre as a pathway to meaningful conversation about care, and the barriers people, organizations, schools and agencies face as they attempt to address BH/MH challenges in their adult and youth communities. The workshops we conduct earlier on show day drive people to the show and grow investment in our presence. The show then provides material and shared experience that helps move the community gathering the next day beyond a meeting and towards a shared, imaginative endeavor with collective purpose and strategic meaning. We’re working to build trust, nurture social connection and tackle big, local challenges as guests, listeners, contributors, facilitators and artists. To do that, we’re constantly trying to learn how to better, authentically and usefully enter and host difficult conversations, because our health- our individual and civic health- requires it.

Between September 2024 and April 2025, State of Mind conducted residencies & performed in 17 Montana communities; Fall 2025, we launched the second year of the tour and we’ll be in 15 more communities by Thanksgiving, and at least 15 more in the first half of 2026. State of Mind is a collaboration between two units at University of Montana- Co-Lab for Civic Imagination, led by Michael Rohd, and Montana Repertory Theater, led by Artistic Director Michael Legg. The core team who created the show included Courtney Davis, Kendra Mylnehcuk Potter, Jackie Vetter, Mack Momberg, Ryan Eggensperger, Zac Thomas, Marie Fahlgren, Rosie Seitz Ayers, Josh Asseng & Sarah Butts, and, our partners at Meadowlark Counseling, one of whom accompanies us on tour into every room, workshop, meeting and performance.

For more information on the project, see here-https://www.umcivicimagination.com/testimonials