While my last piece presented a broad overview of America’s addiction crisis and how it ties into other pressing problems with our country’s social and cultural landscape, in this introduction, I’d like to go a little deeper into the who, what, and why behind New City Players’ upcoming production of Water By The Spoonful.

The play, written by Latin American playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes, came to national prominence by surprising the establishment and landing the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama despite the fact that it had not yet had a prominent New York production.

Its poetic dialogue and razor sharp storytelling has gained it widespread critical acclaim as well as a place in my personal favorite works since I first happened upon a production of it at my old theatrical stomping grounds Actors Rep in early 2020 (you know, during the three months before everything went crazy?).

But aside from simply being a beautiful piece of work by any artistic measure, Water By The Spoonful emerged as a prime contender for a place in NCP’s season partially because of our dedication to choosing works that will serve our vision of helping South Florida to become a more empathetic and thoughtful community.

Often, that means selecting works that engage with socially relevant topics, which helps fuel the customary community engagement activities that surround each of our productions. And, in this day and age, it’s hard to imagine an issue more pressing than the issue of addiction, which is claiming and destroying American lives at an unprecedented rate.

As this multifaceted epidemic continues to rage and the rates of overdose continue to skyrocket, greater awareness and understanding around this issue becomes more and more imperative. This is especially true for the South Florida community, which has long been one of the hotspots of the widespread opioid crisis.

Between the pandemic’s impact on our collective mental health driving many Floridians deeper into despair and drug abuse and the proliferation of uber-dangerous synthetic opioid fentanyl, the cost of this crisis is apparent in the grim fact that we are in second only to California in terms of overdose deaths.

Even just last week, less than ten minutes away from this production’s Island City Stage location, seven spring breakers were affected by overdoses resulting from batches of cocaine believed to have been tainted with fentanyl, which is indeed so potent that two of those hospitalized had only been exposed to the drug through giving mouth to mouth to the initial victims as opposed to having done any themselves.

If you’re wondering what part NCP could possibly play in this as, pretty much, a bunch of crazy theatre kids, the answer may be in the intense stigma that surrounds the issue of addiction. This stigmatization has been shown to serve as a significant barrier to the ability of those with substance abuse disorder to receive the appropriate treatment, as it hampers support for services and initiatives that could aid in recovery and fuels the secrecy and despair that the disease thrives on.

Tragically, the pandemic’s enforced isolation has fueled increases in substance abuse and overdose showcases just how deeply the connection runs between addiction and loneliness.

Yet, as much as the pandemic separated us, it also highlighted the importance of the virtual and intangible connections that, quite literally, can be the only thing keeping a recovering addict from violent self-destruction, a concept that Water By The Spoonful illustrates to both heartwarming and heartrending effect.

It’s thus strangely fitting for the post-COVID era that much of the play takes place in an online chat room and thus within the virtual world, a place strikingly described as the “empty space that connects the chairs” in the play’s set description.

In fact, the well-documented importance of social support and engagement in facilitating recovery from addiction has even led some experts to suggest that the true opposite of addiction may not be sobriety but connection.

In the empty space between any two human souls is the potential to build just these connections, which is part of what we hope to foster by inviting our audiences to empathize with characters who suffer from addiction by telling their stories onstage and by giving community members who have struggled similarly a platform to share their experiences.

We also hope to increase understanding of addiction by increasing the availability of accurate information on the topic, and by connecting our audiences with experts and professionals who work to combat addiction in the social sector.

What, exactly, will that look like? Well, for one thing, we’ll be continuing to release blog posts exploring addiction-related topics regularly in the lead-up to and throughout the run of the show, including interviews with experts and community members who have personal experience with addiction as well as with Water By The Spoonful cast and crew members.

Community members will also get a chance to share their stories at our upcoming Forum event, which will also feature a discussion led by expert panelists who have professional experience in the area. We’ll also be hosting talkbacks featuring similar discussions after every Saturday and Sunday matinee performance.

Talkback after NCP’s 2019 production of *Falling* by Deanna Jent

To this end, we have partnered with several local organizations that will serve as resources for these blog posts and panels. These include Care Resource, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to providing compassionate, competent, and committed healthcare and support services to those in the South Florida area, including their recently established Special Purpose Outreach Team, a mobile medical clinic that provides critical on-site medical care to Broward County residents struggling with substance abuse; United Way of Broward County, a non-profit organization that provides various programming aimed at preventing substance abuse through its Commission on Behavioral Health & Drug Prevention; and local addiction treatment centers, FHE Health, Fifth Street Counseling, and Reco Intensive.

The title of this post is inspired by a term used in the play and in recovery parlance to refer to the first day of an individual’s sobriety, an important recovery milestone. But our day one of this project, or, our first in-person endeavor, will begin with part one of our Forum, which will take place on March 28th.

This will be our first time experimenting with a two-part Forum, with a second portion scheduled for shortly after the show closes on May 23. And, given the complexity and prominence of this issue, I highly doubt we’ll run out of matters to talk about!

As of now, our line-up of panelists includes a variety of professionals from FHE Health, Care Resource, and United Way Broward, and the event will also include a Community Spotlight on USA Opioid Crisis Mortality Reduction 501c3, a local organization dedicated to distributing and educating citizens on how to use the powerful overdose reducing drug Narcan.

From left to right: Arlette Del Toro, Alex Joyel, Krystal Millie Valdes

But, to finish out this post, I did promise you a who’s who on the theatre side, so, here goes! At the helm will be our resident director Elizabeth Price. Noel Barry will serve as stage manager, and April Soroko will take on scene design. We’re also both welcoming both new and long-time company members into production roles, including Rachel Smoker Cox as fight choreographer. Megan DeGraaf as house manager, Dave Smith as box office manager, Harold Petion as assistant stage manager, Tim Davis as producer, Desirae Merritt as lighting designer, Casey Sacco as costume designer, and Ernesto Gonzalez as sound designer.

Company member Alex Joyel is taking on one of the play’s lead roles as struggling Iraq veteran Elliot and Pryscila Cassiano Salinas is playing his more academic cousin Yaz. The rest of the cast is made up of a variety of other talented South Florida artists, some of whom New City Players has worked with before and some of whom are new to our fray: Kent Chambers-Wilson, Chris Dreeson, Arlette del Toro, Tyler Fitch, and Fawad Siddiqui.

And, if you noticed the super-cool sketch accompanying this blog post and wanted to know more about it, you can check out the work of Scott Jeffries.

Finally, I guess there’s me, Ilana Jael, who seems to have defaulted to dramaturg on this project, bringing a fair amount of relevant background knowledge and a boundless desire to find and to spread whatever light I can in this dark, dark terrain.

Up next, our introduction process continues with a more in-depth exploration of the topic of harm reduction and a round-up of relevant resources that those in our area could use to help anyone in their lives who engages in drug use to be as safe and responsible as possible!

Our Water by the Spoonful blog series is sponsored in part by Reco Intensive. To learn more about Reco Intensive, a Delray Beach addiction treatment center whose holistic and compassionate approach aligns with NCP’s vision of helping South Florida to become a more empathetic and thoughtful community, visit their website.

Building Connections: Day One by Ilana Jael

The Forum: Addiction & Recovery Pt. 1

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