Home is a Beautiful Word
Thursday, October 28
7:00 pm ET
Joel Bernbaum & Kaite Burkholder Harris
Leah Cogan, host
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ATTEND IN PERSON OR ONLINE!
A special adaptation of the award winning play on homelessness in Canada.
Attend in Person*
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Attend Online
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* Vaccine Passport and ID required at the door for in-person events.
Click here for COVID-19 protocols.
Click here for COVID-19 protocols.
Home is a Beautiful Word is the critically acclaimed, award-winning play on homelessness in Canada by Joel Bernbaum of Sum Theatre. Verbatim theatre is a term for scripts made out of interviews or transcripts. For this piece, Joel interviewed over 500 people in Victoria BC, between 2012 and 2014. The interviews were transcribed and edited into a script. One of the appealing aspects of verbatim theatre is that voices not often present in the traditional media can be heard. Actors of all ages, genders and backgrounds shift between people of different ages, genders and backgrounds. It is the hope that this form of playwriting offers a kaleidoscopic view of the issue of homelessness.
Adapted for the Writers Fête, the reading is co-produced with Theatre Wakefield. By turns hard-hitting, sad, brave, funny and surprising, this verbatim theatre play challenges assumptions about homelessness.
The reading is followed by a panel with Joel Bernbaum, Kaite Burkholder Harris of End Homelessness Ottawa Alliance, and actress and anti-poverty advocate Leah Cogan. To open the panel, Ottawa Poet Laureate Albert Dumont will read his poem The Sky, The Pavement – dedicated to good human beings, living on the city's streets, a world premiere that was commissioned by the Writers Fête.
Adapted for the Writers Fête, the reading is co-produced with Theatre Wakefield. By turns hard-hitting, sad, brave, funny and surprising, this verbatim theatre play challenges assumptions about homelessness.
The reading is followed by a panel with Joel Bernbaum, Kaite Burkholder Harris of End Homelessness Ottawa Alliance, and actress and anti-poverty advocate Leah Cogan. To open the panel, Ottawa Poet Laureate Albert Dumont will read his poem The Sky, The Pavement – dedicated to good human beings, living on the city's streets, a world premiere that was commissioned by the Writers Fête.
JOEL BERNBAUM is an actor, director, playwright, journalist and the founding artistic director of Sum Theatre. Joel has produced plays including Operation Big Rock, My Rabbi (with Kayvon Khoshkam), Home Is a Beautiful Word, Reasonable Doubt (with Yvette Nolan and Lancelot Knight) and Being Here: The Refugee Project. Joel is an interdisciplinary PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan, investigating the potential of theatre to strengthen cities. He lives in Saskatoon with his 6-year old son, Judah.
KAITE BURKHOLDER HARRIS is Executive Director of Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa. She has worked at the national level as a policy analyst with Reaching Home, the federal government’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy, and as a system planner with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. Kaite was also project manager for A Way Home Ottawa in preventing and ending youth homelessness.
As a former frontline mental health worker, Kaite has a strong understanding of some of the challenges facing people who live on the streets. Motivated by a desire to see larger systems change, Kaite is energized by engaging and mobilizing new stakeholders towards the goal of safe and affordable housing for everyone in our community. She can be seen giving a Walrus Talk, “How to End Homelessness in Canada” at https://bit.ly/3AomJvQ.
As a former frontline mental health worker, Kaite has a strong understanding of some of the challenges facing people who live on the streets. Motivated by a desire to see larger systems change, Kaite is energized by engaging and mobilizing new stakeholders towards the goal of safe and affordable housing for everyone in our community. She can be seen giving a Walrus Talk, “How to End Homelessness in Canada” at https://bit.ly/3AomJvQ.
Ottawa actor, musician and performance coach LEAH COGAN is most at home when walking alongside others in their journey towards full and free expression. As a voice and embodiment specialist, her work has led her across North America, learning and leading, speaking and listening to the nuanced work of advocacy through the arts.
A graduate of Brown University, founder of Abolitionist Theatre Company, acting teacher, mother of three, Vice-Chair of PAL Ottawa, and most recently, partner with Alliance to End Homelessness on the development of an arts-driven, immersive simulation experience of homelessness, Leah most keenly identifies as human/she/her.
A graduate of Brown University, founder of Abolitionist Theatre Company, acting teacher, mother of three, Vice-Chair of PAL Ottawa, and most recently, partner with Alliance to End Homelessness on the development of an arts-driven, immersive simulation experience of homelessness, Leah most keenly identifies as human/she/her.
