An Orlando playwright looks at our own preconceptions and how they can change the lives of others, for good or ill, in a new play inspired by real events called “unhoused/homefree.”
It's part of the third annual Original Play Festival at Breakthrough Theatre in Winter Park taking place next week.
Alan Levi is no stranger to film, television and storytelling, having been a location scout for big projects like “Rosewood” and the “Curse of the Blair Witch” before retiring. So when it came time to process difficult events in his neighborhood, the stage was a natural outlet for him.
Levi said the play sprung from his experiences around a city-proposed homeless shelter near his neighborhood, in a facility that previously housed work-release inmates. The city said that the facility already had most of the physical infrastructure in place to offer about 300 beds and wraparound services for unhoused people.
But opposition to the project grew swiftly among nearby residents. In fact, Levi said, he found the ferocity and scale of the opposition to this project from some of his neighbors shocking, so much so that when he had a chance to speak out…he didn’t. Levi explained that moment came after a “fearmongering” social media campaign and high-profile petition drive culminated in a neighborhood meeting where those who opposed the shelter shouted down the lawmaker who had come to defend it.
“Even though I supported the shelter, I didn't speak up because there were so many people who pretty much became a mob, and I just didn't have the courage,” said Levi.
So, he said, “unhoused/homefree” is his way of making amends for that moment of fear.
“I’m going to write a play about this,” Levi said, explaining his thought process at the time. “This is how I’m going to atone for my lack of speaking up.”
The play itself is actually three stories in one. They each begin the same way: a presumably unhoused person is reading a novel on a neighborhood park bench. The story changes based on the response of the other person who shows up to share the bench.
“When I started to really read about homelessness and talk to people who help the homeless and that community, I realized it all comes down to this root issue…we're not treating the unhoused as human beings,” said Levi. “It's this phrase that comes up again and again: ‘they're human.’ It's just shocking that we even have to say that or make that argument.”
The play is one of seven that are being presented during the 3rd Annual Original Play Festival at Breakthrough Theatre in Winter Park.
