Today we’d like to introduce you to Maren Ward.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
zAmya was started by Lecia Grossman in 2004. Lecia was a life coach at the time. She is now an organizational consultant. Lecia saw what she perceived as an increase in homelessness in her neighborhood in South Minneapolis. She was disturbed by this and wanted to understand it more. Through understanding, she hoped she might be part of a solution. She knew that in order to really understand, she would need relationships in the community. She thought about how she’d always wanted to act and wondered if working together on a theater project with people who were homeless would be a way to get to know people and build relationships that would inform how she would engage with the issue. She reached out to housing advocates and theater professionals (including myself) and put a team together to actualize this idea. She named it the “zAmya Theater Project” after she discovered the Sanskrit word zAmya meant “aiming for peace”.
For the first 5 years, we did an annual project together that started with creative workshops in shelters and drop-in centers and locations where people struggling with housing were finding resources. We put calls out through our own networks for “housed” cast members to join these workshops. Workshops generated ideas and material for the play which our playwright, Josef Evans, formulated into a script. We toured the production around during National Hunger and Homelessness Week in November to 5 venues – a school, a company, a faith institution, a theater and a shelter.
After the first 5 years, we were invited to merge with St. Stephen’s Human Services as part of their Community Engagement program. While embedded at St. Stephens’, we grew to a year-round organization guided by a troupe of actors with lived experience of homelessness. In 2018 we became once again an independent organization and now have a 501c3. We continue to create original works of theater that are grounded in lived experiences with housing and homelessness to share with audiences around the state. We offer our creative process as a tool for building understanding across differences and forming alliances of homeless and housed to work for housing justice.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nothing our organization has faced is as challenging as surviving without housing. Our actors and participants have navigated challenges finding food and shelter, escaping abusive situations, enduring systemic racism, generational trauma, severe illness – and many other adverse circumstances that can create or exacerbate instability.
It is astounding how much joy we find in each other’s company and our work together in spite of such challenges.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
zAmya is the only housing justice-focused theater in Minnesota. Our troupe of artists brings diverse experience in visual art, spoken word, music, and comedy which means our shows are eclectic and real and surprisingly funny! WE have reached over 25,000 people with our provocative productions. I’m really proud of our work right now in Greater MN – shining a light on rural homelessness with our production of “A Prairie Homeless Companion”.
What are your plans for the future?
Touring “A Prairie Homeless Companion” around the state and maybe a run at the Fitzgerald Theater.
Contact Info:
- Website: zamyatheater.org
- Instagram: @zamyatheater
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zAmyaTheater
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR7Cjo_bupk-Mq6xf_DKd7g
