Will Weigler
Community-based Theatre

From the Heart: enter into the journey of reconciliation is a project I co-created with over one hundred people in Victoria, British Columbia, during the spring and summer of 2013. We were a culturally diverse, inter-generational group of almost entirely non-Indigenous men and women who found common ground creating and performing an unconventional theatre production about our personal understanding of the fraught legacy of colonialism in Canada. The project offered a way for us to stand as allies with Indigenous peoples and to take some measure of responsibility for contributing to reconciliation in this country. We hoped that theatre would offer us a creative and stimulating way to promote meaningful public dialogue. I am very proud of what we accomplished. I believe it was an extraordinary project—an extraordinary show.  It was also simply a container that enabled people with good hearts to step forward and put into action their desire to contribute to making a better Canada.

 

We welcome other groups to pick up where we have left off, and to consider the possibility of creating their own original productions of this project.

My book, From the Heart: How 100 Canadians Created an Unconventional Theatre Performance about Reconciliation, was written as a how-to manual with everything you need to know to produce it. My most recent book, The Alchemy of Astonishment: Engaging the Power of Theatre, and the companion set of staging strategy cards will help the project participants to develop their scripts, translating their ideas for scenes and songs into evocative and captivating performances. If you are intrigued by the potential of this project in your community and would like some additional support, please contact me to ask about my availability for consultation and collaboration with you and your organization.

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To learn more about our production, click here.

My book on the project is available here