The City We Make Together: City Council Meeting's Primer for Participation - Paperback

by Mallory Catlett (Author), Aaron Landsman (Author)

In 2009, theatre artist Aaron Landsman was dragged by a friend to a city council meeting in Portland, Oregon. At first he was bored, but when a citizen dumped trash in front of the council in order to show how the city needed cleaning up, he was intrigued. He began attending local government meetings across the country, interviewing council members, staffers, activists, and other citizens. Out of this investigation, Landsman and director Mallory Catlett developed a participatory theatre piece called City Council Meeting.

The City We Make Together looks at how we make art with communities, how we perform power and who gets to play which roles, and how we might use creativity and rigorous inquiry to look at our structures of democracy anew.

Author Biography

Mallory Catlett is coartistic director of Mabou Mines, an associate artist at CultureHub, and artistic director of Restless Productions NYC. She lives in New York City.
Aaron Landsman is a theatre artist, writer, and teacher. He lives in New York City.