For the past 2 years, Wonderlust Productions has been conducting interviews and story circles with almost 150 Twin Cities caregivers. These include staff at MSS (formerly Midwest Special Services), therapists at Creative Kuponya, caregiver support groups at Comunidades Latinos Unidas En Servicio (CLUES), the Karen Organization of Minnesota, and Covenant Living Senior Living, home health care workers, daycare workers, end of life doulas, educators, doctors, and more. From these interviews, a team of local artist writers led by Alan Berks and Leah Cooper and including Vinecia Coleman, Antonio Duke, Bradley Greenwald, Matt Guidry, Masanari Kawahara, and Sarah Myers created a play which dramatizes caregiving from a multitude of perspectives.
This process results in a play that feels authentic and real. Rather than one narrative story, Thank You for Holding tells about a half dozen different (and sometimes interrelated) stories in one or two scenes each. We see a man reluctantly become a caregiver when his wife has an unexpected stroke, we watch a sister advocate for her brother in the hospital system, we get to know a nurse who also takes care of her mother at home, we watch a mother reunite with her child in a care facility after the covid separation. Through it all the 24-person ensemble sits onstage watching or adding sound effects (I particularly loved the hold music harmonies, often sung or spoken into tin cans). There are some lovely musical moments (created by Bradley Greenwald) as interstitials, and even a dance break, because why not?
This cast is so huge that even towards the end of the play, we were being introduced to actors we hadn't seen yet (part of that is due to the sightlines at 825 Arts, which are not great if you're sitting on the floor seats). There are actors that you'll recognize from other stages around town, but even so, it's sometimes hard to tell the professional actors from the "real people" caregivers. As I wrote about The Incarceration Play Project, "what they lack in theater experience and training they make up for in life experience, raw honesty, and passion." It just feels so much more meaningful when the people on stage have lived the story they're telling.
The set consists of a hospital bed and equipment, as well as kitchen and living room scenes, moved smoothly on and off stage while the ensemble creates music. This was my first time seeing a show at the new 825 Arts (formerly known as Victoria Theater). It's a cool historic space, with a shiny new spacious lobby. I'm not sure if the theater space is a black box (meaning stage and seating can be moved around to different configurations), but they need to give a little more consideration to sightlines and perhaps add some risers; I was doing a lot of head bobbing from the 3rd row trying to get a glimpse of the cast, especially when they were seated.
The title is a play on words that refers to both holding on the phone while trying to get information from insurance or a facility or any number of other organizations that caregivers have to navigate, but also refers to the fact that caregivers literally hold other humans up, and figuratively hold them in their hearts. Thank You for Holding is a beautiful tribute to them that also tells engaging and relatable stories.