2's Got Your Ticket: A Home What Howls
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The fight to save a neighborhood from the wrecking ball is playing out on stage at Steppenwolf Theatre.
With 2's Got your Ticket, CBS 2 Entertainment Reporter Vince Gerasole talks with playwright Matthew Paul Olmos about the production "A Home What Howls."
Youth activism and a community displaced by growth are the themes explored in the production. The staging is part of Steppenwolf's Theater for Young Artists.
The construction of a new road threatens a family's home and the surrounding communities. They're the last holdouts when a young daughter finds her voice as an activist against the injustices caused by the expansion and growth.
"For this play, it was actually a photograph. I found a photograph of a woman, a mother, being torn from her home by the police. And the image struck me and I started thinking about what would it be like for the last family left who were fighting against progress," Olmos said.
For the playwright, the title has to come first before work on a story gets started.
"Usually with plays, I almost have to have the title before I can write the play. Because the title reminds me of what the story I originally intended to write was," Olmos said. "When I'm writing and I get a little bit lost, I can always go back and (remember) this is about home. This is about what it means to have a home."
What is the planning process like?
"I usually research for a year or two before I can actually write. But what I do is research for all that time and then I set all of that down and I just start writing the play," he said. "I had the research about the family but then I invented a young woman, Soledad, who is going to lead the charge and try to start a movement against what was going on in her community.
What does Olmos hope people come away with after watching the play?
"That there's hope. Even when we hear historical stories where there's displacement or any sort of injustice, this family still has laughter and beauty. There's a lot of hope in stories that we think are dire," Olmos said.
"A Home What Howls" runs through March 2 at the Steppenwolf Theatre.