Bozeman Magazine

Sojourn Theatre, founded in 1999, is an award-winning ensemble theatre company comprised of 15 artists who live in 8 cities and make performance together around the nation.  National/international touring, a body of 25 works, and a reputation for consistent innovation as artists and engagement practitioners has led to:  a 2005 Ford Foundation/Americans for the Arts Exemplar Award; being featured regularly at conferences and universities nationwide as a “best practice model” for arts-based civic dialogue; being featured in recent articles in American Theater Magazine and Yale’s Theater Journal; partnerships with non-arts sector organizations such as city and state legislative bodies, social service agencies and cross-disciplinary arts centers around the country.

How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes is a devised and participatory performance model for community engagement being staged (so far) in Chicago, Louisiana, Washington DC, and Portland, OR.  Each evening in Big Sky is capped at a maximum 120 people to facilitate a meaningful experience.  The show examines collective decision-making as the audience votes at the end of each night on where to send $1,000 (that sits on stage the whole time) to fight poverty in Montana.  With multiple approaches, experts from around the state of Montana, and cameo performances, the show elucidates the particular issues surrounding our area.  Highly original and genuinely grassroots, How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes is likely to be one of the most interesting experiences you will every encounter in live theater.  See how Sojourn created the performance in Chicago to get a better feel for how the evenings will work in Montana.

The company is led by founding artistic director Michael Rohd who devises, directs and collaborates on cross-sector projects around the nation, is on faculty at Northwestern University, wrote the widely translated book Theatre for Community, Conflict, and Dialogue, and leads the Center for Performance and Civic Practice.

This project is funded in part by the Montana Arts Council, an agency of the State Government, and the National Endowment for the Arts.