Public Works
Part open mic, part songwriting workshop, part forum. We write a song together, then the room rewrites it live.
Come to one or both phases. Phase one builds the song. Phase two rewrites it live.
Open mic nights are fantastic. I love them. But I've noticed something. The songs are usually about one person's experience, and the room listens. We clap. We go home. The song doesn't change, and neither do we.
Lately I've been thinking about a different kind of gathering, one where the song is not just performed but opened up. Where we don't just listen to the problem in the song. We try to solve it. Out loud. Together. In real time.
It happens in two phases. We write a song together, then we rewrite it together.
Phase one: Write It Together This is a songwriting workshop at community scale.
We each bring one line. One sentence, one verse, one thing we've seen on our street. Not a finished song. A line. Something like:
"I slept in my car behind the church on 9th."
"Nobody looks at you at the stoplight."
"I still have my keys, I just don't have a door."
We post them up, read a few aloud, and find the thread running through them. Then we build a song from those lines. We compile and arrange them into verses, find a chorus, set it to a simple tune. The song is about a real bind in our city, and it has no easy answer in it. We deliberately leave it unresolved, ending on the trap rather than the escape. The music can resolve. The situation doesn't. That's what gives phase two something to work on.
The output of phase one is a new song that belongs to the room, because the room wrote it.
Phase two: Rewrite It Together Now the song gets performed, and then opened up.
The host stops it mid-way and invites us to change it. This isn't a play that happens to have songs in it. The song itself is what we work on. We try:
A different line. Someone takes the mic and sings a different lyric at the moment where the song gives in. The band follows. We hear what that choice feels like.
A different voice. Someone else sings the same song in their own idiom. Suddenly the song is a position, not a truth.
A different ending. The last verse gets rewritten live. What if she walks out? What if she stays and organizes? What if the whole room sings the chorus with her, so she's not alone?
A different sound. Strip the music back, or turn the chorus into a singalong. Sometimes the most powerful change isn't a word at all. It's who's singing.
Between each attempt, we sing a short chorus everyone learned at the start. That's the reset. It brings us back to the beginning and gives the next person a place to jump in.
At the end, we haven't just heard a song. We've rehearsed several versions of it, and those rewritten lines get written down, sung together, and saved. Next time, a different theme, a different song, and our repertoire grows.
Why this is different from a themed open mic A themed open mic is still a performance. This is a workshop disguised as a night out, and the disguise is the point. The room is familiar, the stakes are low, and nobody has to be an actor. But be clear about what's expected of us. This isn't a night to listen and clap. It's a time to write and try things. Nobody's performing a finished song. We're making one.
The output isn't applause. It's a songbook of revised songs, versions we made together, about problems we actually have. That's the part I find exciting. We leave with something we can use.
What it takes to try it We don't need a theatre company. We need:
A room willing to bring a line. Not a finished song, a sentence. That's a low enough bar that almost anyone can meet it, which is the whole point of community scale.
A host willing to facilitate. This is the real skill. Someone has to invite people up, keep it safe, and know when to stop. If we can, we should learn from a forum theatre practitioner. The facilitation is the heart of it.
A band that can follow. Keep it simple. A vamp, a loop, three chords. Whatever lets the musicians track a changed line and keep going.
A room that knows it's allowed to interrupt. Say it out loud at the top. "This song is yours to break."
How it runs, possibly We can run it as two sessions or one long one. Phase one ends with a finished song we can sing. Phase two is complete on its own if we're there for the forum. But the fullest version is both, because phase two works best when the room already knows the song it's about to rewrite.
Phase one, Write It Together:
Warm-up and ground rules (10 min)
We post our lines, and the room reads a few aloud (20 min)
Cluster the lines, find the spine, pick the bind (20 min)
Build the verses and a chorus together (30 min)
Sing the new song through once (10 min)
Phase two, Rewrite It Together:
Warm-up, teach the room the reset chorus (5 min)
The song is performed once, whole (10 min)
The forum. Stop it, invite interventions, reset between each try (30 min)
Harvest. Name what worked, write down the new lines, sing the best ones together (20 min)
Close with the reset chorus one more time (5 min)
Then repeat with a new theme next time.
A test for whether it's working After a session, ask one question. Did we leave with a song we can use? A song to name a problem, to rehearse a response, to remember a solution. If yes, it worked. If the songs were just performed and the forum was just a discussion, it was a lovely themed open mic, but it wasn't yet this thing.
Why this? In the spirit of Useful Art — the idea that art should do something in the world, not just sit in a frame — and Theatre of the Oppressed, where the audience gets up and rehearses a better ending, this is something we're making our own. And by we, I mean the community, and the collective that's forming around this.
If we've ever left a night humming a song about a problem and wishing we could do something about it, this is that wish, with a microphone and a band and a room full of people who've got our back.
Come bring a line. We'll write it together, then we'll rewrite it together.