Curating the story of a city: Playwright Nancy Bell

What does it mean to be a St. Louisan today?

That is the question posed by playwright Nancy Bell in the development of her new play, Blow, Winds, set to highlight Shakespeare in the Streets in downtown St. Louis this September.

Bell jokes that her own title “Playwright-in-Residence” for Shakespeare Festival St. Louis “makes me sound like I’m Shakespeare.” In her role, Bell leads conversations and story circles with members of the community to learn their personal stories and what life is like in their neighborhood. These conversations result in hours and hours of audio and notes, which Bell uses to craft a new play. “I really get to know the primary source material,” she explains. “I just try to let it talk to me and tell me what it wants to be.”

Nancy describes her role as Playwright-in-Residence for Shakespeare Festival St. Louis

Bell has worked on every Shakespeare in the Streets performance, now in its sixth season. The play development process has grown from a very small team to one that is much larger in scope and highlights the work of many other creative professionals. “It’s not a normal playwriting gig because so many people’s voices are in the play. It’s almost like I’m a curator of a lot of voices that include my own voice, and Shakespeare’s voice.”

Nancy describes her role as curator for Shakespeare in the Streets

In year’s past, Bell and members of the creative team focused on telling the story of one neighborhood. This season, the conversation began a little differently around the concept of “ONE CITY.” As Bell led conversations with people across St. Louis, there was no agenda; there was just the goal of understanding both the points of pride and the challenges faced by the city. Many residents spoke about barriers created both by maps and by way of life. As more and more conversations took place, the play became an expression of the longing to truly be ONE CITY. “Our project invites people to cross boundaries; not only the physical boundaries but the boundaries in our hearts and minds,” says Bell.

Nancy describes the goal of Shakespeare in the Streets of breaking down boundaries on maps and in minds

King Lear, the Shakespeare inspiration for Blow, Winds, gives Bell an ideal route to tell her story. In King Lear, the King wishes to divide his Kingdom between his three daughters. The King quickly learns that a house divided cannot stand, and he is left to watch the tragedy unfold as his Kingdom unravels around him. This will be the first time that Bell has adapted a tragedy for the Shakespeare in the Streets setting, and says that although her story is not as bleak as Shakespeare’s original work, this will definitely be a different type of show than in year’s past. Despite the bleak theme, Bell says that the story of King Lear, along with her adaptation, carries a lot of hope. “It has profound examples of transcendent, redemptive love,” says Bell. “Like all tragedies, it’s about a terrible thing that happens, and then people come together to somehow recover. Tragedy is really about the recovery.”

Nancy talks about adapting a tragedy for the first time and the play that inspired Blow, Winds, KING LEAR.

It is this theme of recovery and change that brought Bell to the title, Blow, Winds. In King Lear, The King cries out for the winds to blow and bring a change within him. In Blow, Winds, the very appropriately dubbed “King Louis” is a representation of the city’s willingness and desire to change. Bell heard this theme in many of her conversations with people all across St. Louis.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

Bell hopes that although all St. Louisians will enter the play with their own perspective, all that attend will be able to see a bit of their city, and themselves, reflected onstage. “This play is for St. Louis,” Bell says. “It exists only for you.”

Blow, Winds will play on the steps of Central Library in downtown St. Louis, September 15–17, nightly at 8pm. The performance is free and open to the public. Visit SFSTL.com for more information.

Shakespeare in the Streets 2017 is underwritten by PNC Arts Alive with additional support from Switch, Kiku Obata & Company, the Whitaker Foundation, the William E. Weiss Foundation, and the Strive Fund.

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