An idea…

For me, Cleveland Public Theatre has always been an idea. An idea that can transform the life of a young person living in public housing, or somebody who’s a refugee from another country, or probably most challenging of all – an idea that can remind people of their own origins and DNA.

And so, if CPT didn’t exist, there would be no awakening of St. John’s Episcopal Church. St. John’s was always this incredible place, but it was a historic structure, a stop on the Lolly the Trolley ride. People would look at it and their imaginations would soar – but no one could be inside this building. It was static. And quiet. And Bishop Hollingsworth of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio has always been a person who believes a faith is not worth believing unless you’re living it every day. He’s an amazing person—the embodiment of compassion—and when he was approached about activating the church, he had no doubt it would be successful because CPT was involved. You’re asking a religious figure in charge of a national historic site, a place wracked with emotion because it used to be a functioning church, but had since gone quiet. It’s the oldest standing sanctified structure in Cuyahoga County. Who do you trust with that? You only trust people you know share your values, and who could wake up the stones and bring life to a place.

Cleveland Public Theatre came in, and it was amazing to watch year one through year five, every year feeling different, as if it was the first year, because there was always new and important art. Some of my favorite memories include a piece talking about prisoners of war who were tortured in Iraq, another in which artists replicated what it was like when people were bounty hunting for human beings considered slaves. Congressman Louis Stokes dedicated the first Underground Railroad marker in the state of Ohio at Station Hope – a historic member of Congress (and we didn’t know, but it was the last public event at which he spoke before he told everyone he had cancer). The classmates of Tamir Rice spoke not of their anger (which would have been righteous), not of their despair (which would have been obvious), but how sad they were they lost their friend. And then of course, when Darius Stubbs told the story about coming to this station only for hope, and how he moved across different ideas and people who’d been persecuted and are being persecuted—a deeply moving poem by Darius and Raymond Bobgan. Station Hope is a singular event and yet it feels like it’s what the church stood for all along.

In the beginning

Joan Southgate’s name must be said first. Joan, former social worker, grandmother of nine, woman who walked hundreds of miles retracing the Underground Railroad from Ohio to Ontario and back. She lit the path for Station Hope and guided us all. There were people like Graham Veysey and Marika Shioiri-Clark, this young, beautiful, dynamic, gravity-defying couple who make things happen. People from Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, people like Jeffery Patterson – almost the entire campus of St. John’s is neighbored by Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority estates. And the folks who, in the beginning, in the neighborhood, believed in the idea of the church coming alive and CPT being part of it. There were people like Eric Wobser, the head of Ohio City Incorporated at the time, who had a real understanding of how to make things come alive that had been quiet, who had a real knack for history, who was a son of the Firelands, a place rich with stories of the Underground Railroad. And I’ll say this about Raymond and the team – it was a big risk for CPT to have taken. There’s a lot of financial and physical capital that went into it, but also artistic capital. How do you create a moment of artistic meaning around a topic that’s pretty hard to talk about – slavery and the Civil War, the original sin of the United States of America, the one that still hasn’t been repented from, [the reason] why we are where we are today. It’s the core of our dysfunction and the darkness surrounding us in terms of race. How do you do it in a way where you celebrate the people who were part of this movement and everything else the church meant?

And so for me, those were the folks who were the origins of why Station Hope happened. All those people I named, and more, they were the brilliant lights of it. It’s funny when you tell people now, “I remember when the church was just a stop on the Lolly the Trolley,” and people can’t imagine that. When something has become so alive now – you can’t go back.

A Treasure in Our Community

People didn’t realize St. John’s was the first church with a soup kitchen attached to it in Cleveland. It was the first church that had an openly gay member of the community perform a service there. They didn’t realize people like Russell Means, considered by the FBI a domestic American terrorist, who was advocating for Native American rights, lived there. I will always remember walking in the bell tower with Mayor Jackson, and Mayor Jackson’s a pretty amazing guy, and a really incredible mayor, and he didn’t say anything… We were walking in the tower, in the basement, in the areas of the church, and he said to me, “You can just feel this place.” There was no choir there, no drum and dance company. No students talking about Tamir Rice – Tamir Rice hadn’t been killed yet. Congressman Stokes hadn’t dedicated it yet. And at that point, the Mayor was saying “You can feel this place.”

Station Hope now and onward

Station Hope is a celebratory poem embodying the pain, and struggle, and suffering of African people brought to this country against their will. In spite of the injustice, in spite of how we treated our sisters and brothers like animals, this light bursts forth from there, because the only thing greater than darkness is light. And Station Hope, to me, is a demonstrative, relevant, never-the-same, always-unique, series of experiences of light. Even when it’s hard to watch, there’s something about it that pushes you forward. We have to remember America, Station Hope, Cleveland – this struggle for racial equity is still happening. The last star on our flag has not been sewn on. And I would argue on that sea of blue there should be room for another 100,000 stars, because it’s going to take a journey longer than 50 to get us right. I always think of the flag hanging inside St. John’s Church with 25 stars, the flag placed there when St. John’s was first built in 1836. That flag is a great symbol of Station Hope and why it’s so important for CPT to be part of it. Nobody knew that flag was there when nobody was in the church. And now we see it, now we realize, now we experience it, and we have to keep moving forward.

We’re turning a corner right now in our country because we’re getting browner, because people are not asleep anymore. Words like “racial equity” are being used by old white men like me. People are becoming very comfortable with being uncomfortable. If CPT is an idea, then Station Hope is a creation of that idea, and has momentum that has to keep moving. It’s too important to our city, to the people who live in it, for that story not to be told. It’s like a 23andme test. It’s an ancestry.com test for this city. The spit on the paper we send back comes back with Station Hope. It’s in our DNA. Whether we’re aware of it or not. Whether I have Finnish or Costa Rican ancestors. It doesn’t really matter. Cleveland was, is, a place of liberation, in spite of the fact that sometimes it’s also a place of oppression. Inside that conflict, Station Hope lives, and is the place telling that story.

When I was walking to Station Hope the first year, walking by West Side Market, I remember seeing this army of motorized wheelchairs coming from Riverview CMHA estates. And then I remember seeing all these [Ohio City] residents who didn’t live in public housing coming to Station Hope. And then seeing the incredible diversity of issues and people and everyone feeling like this sanctuary was theirs. It’s a very special place. And the commonality is the Civil War. I mean it’s so ironic, right? The reason our country went to war was also why Station Hope needed to exist. And yet, Station Hope feels so… I don’t want to use the word comfortable, because that would suggest a sense of easiness. It’s just that people feel at home at Station Hope. The darkness lives alongside the light at Station Hope. We are not [just] an immigrant nation. We’re an immigrant nation, and a nation that kidnapped every black person who’s here, unless they were born in Africa and they immigrated here after the Civil War. We’re a nation of a lot of things, and even the immigrants who are here who we romanticize now, we [once] treated like dirt. And African Americans are still struggling for the right to be. Station Hope is the embodiment of all that, and it talks about it in a way people understand and feel. There’s a reason people keep coming back. There’s something there I think we need.

Gratitude

It has to be said that but for Cleveland Public Theatre, Station Hope wouldn’t exist. I feel so much gratitude (and so do many others) for the fact that Cleveland Public Theatre and Raymond Bobgan have taken something from the ancient days of Cleveland and made it feel very alive today. There’s this sense of appreciation for the staff at Cleveland Public Theatre who work hard every day, who are involved in dozens of productions, some funny, some not, some really ethereal, some really down to earth, some avant garde. But on this day, and I know there are a lot of shows you could say this about, Station Hope wouldn’t exist but for Cleveland Public Theatre. And I just want to say thank you.

Beyond

Why do we even do it? When it can be so painful sometimes? Because the truth has to be told in a way people can hear it so they can change. And art is the way change happens. You could write a doctoral dissertation on the church and what it meant, create a series of paintings, storyboards, take your ipod and do a virtual reality tour – but those likely won’t help us internalize that for some people, the environment that made Station Hope necessary in the first place is still very real today in 2018. Cleveland Public Theatre can do that. I don’t believe art can change peoples’ lives; I believe art does change lives. And Station Hope has absolutely changed Cleveland. You can’t experience Station Hope and not feel as if you’re a different person after you leave.