Life Heist: Stealing Hope While Surviving Diabetes and Homelessness
When chronic illness meets homelessness we must get creative to meet the challenges that a worldwide pandemic, overworked and underfunded everything presents. It’s time for a hest. Ocean’s Eleven meets the actual decline of western civilization?
2021 Creative Team
Written by Jon Cole & ensemble
Directed by Maren Ward
Music by Carlisle Evans Peck
Choreography by Lelis Brito
Company Management by Esther Ouray
Performed by zAmya Theater Troupe & Dhomes Team Members: Edward Adair, Marcia Barnes, Annette Bryant, Ali Cia Anderson Campbell, Alphonse Carr, Moncies Franco, Susan Gust, Denita Ngwu, Tahiti Robinson, and Kate Diaz Vickery
The Backstory
In 2020, Dr. Kate Vickery of Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute, and zAmya Theater joined forces to create a multi-stakeholder research team focused on the intersection of diabetes and homelessness.
That September, they received a Pilot Grant from the Program for Health Disparities Research, University of Minnesota. Research team members and zAmya troupe members collaborated to create an original play. This participatory theater project was designed to improve the lives and health of people experiencing type 2 diabetes and/or homelessness by promoting collaborative dialogue between researchers and community members and reducing stigma. It was a unique experiment between participatory theater and community-engaged research, aimed to also challenge perceptions about both diabetes and homelessness.
Dr. Kate Diaz Vickery and the research team members utilized the principles of Community-Based Participatory Research - trust, mutual respect, shared power, shared knowledge, mutual benefits and reflection - in conducting community-engaged research.