Have the wounds from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and CHOP’s time on Capitol Hill healed?

This weekend, playwright and University of Washington professor Nikki Yeboah’s work examining the aftermath of the protests will take the stage with Sound Theatre Company’s reading of 11th & Pine at the neighborhood’s Erickson Theatre:

Several years after the 2020 protests against police violence that ushered in a racial awakening across the nation, a deposed protest leader sends out a call to fellow activists. Her goal? To reconstruct the occupation she led in her city. As they relive moments both utopian and excruciating, the activists find the task of explaining what happened is not so simple. Did they succeed? Did they fail? How will they be remembered? Meanwhile, old tensions resurface and the group contends with powerful opponents who want to tell the story in their own way. Based on interviews with Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protestors, 11TH & PINE explores the impact of organized protest, asking “can we make a difference, and if so, at what cost?”

Yeboah’s work was shaped this fall as UW researchers fanned out to contact participants in the 2020 protest camp and others in the community in the project “aiming at re-exploring and rebuilding the CHOP’s narrative for the purpose of creating a documentary theatre performance.” CHS publisher Justin Carder was contacted by the researchers but did not participate.

The repercussions of CHOP and the city’s continue to play out. Last month, the city settled a $3.6 million “deliberate indifference” lawsuit with Capitol Hill property owners and businesses over its response to the protests. Prosecutors, meanwhile, also wrapped up another thread from the period, arriving at a plea deal with the brother of an East Precinct cop who shot and wounded a protestor at 11th and Pine.

The city’s efforts to address the issues around racism, inequity, and police violence have been less definitive. A roster of “$100 million” in promises from then-Mayor Jenny Durkan has mostly played out as business as usual for existing city programs with only a new and slow-moving participatory budget process to show for it. The Seattle Police Department’s legitimacy also seems to have been permanently dented.

Sound Theatre Company is treading softly in taking on the potentially still raw topic, staging the presentation this weekend as a staged reading and not a full-on production. In addition to the public performances, the group is also organizing a special “community” reading “intended only for people who participated in the CHOP and their guests.”

Please note that this is a staged reading with minimal-to-no stage technology as there would be in a fully-produced show. A company of 14 professional actors will read the play that Dr. Yeboah has written based on interviews and interviewee feedback at different stages of writing and play development. We feel it is now time to share the work with the larger Seattle community, starting with this community-based performance.

The public readings will take place at the the Erickson Theatre Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 PM with a 2 PM session on Sunday. You can learn more and purchase tickets at soundtheatrecompany.org/2023-season/11th-pine/.

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