In May of 2022, we produced a live-streamed staged reading of Willmar at The Tank in NYC.

During COVID, we went back into the (virtual) script room. Through an online intensive process, our script development team took another deep dive into The Willmar Project material and reflected, reviewed, and edited the play to move closer to its central question: “how do we communicate across difference and what is at stake?”

The purpose of this staged reading was to share the play with participants in Willmar for the first time, to hear their responses and to gain their feedback on the future of the project. Following the reading, we gathered on Zoom for a discussion with participants in Willmar and offered community engagement tools to reflect and share experiences of watching the play.

Hearing feelings, thoughts, ideas, and responses from participants in Willmar is an essential step in our process. This feedback has impacted the structure of the final stage of this project as well as the play itself.