The Red Door Project To Present EVOLVE EXPERIENCE

Kevin Jones, Co-founder and Artistic Director of The Red Door Project, says that we're all too certain of what's 'right.' "Someone recently called it a 'pandemic of certainty,' Jones says. "I agree." An award-winning theatre artist, Jones is the director of The Evolve Experience, a unique performance in which characters called Police Officer and Citizen find their certainty tested. It's not surprising to meet characters named Police Officer and Citizen in a story focused on moving beyond intractable divides. It's also not surprising that audiences come with preconceived ideas about how these two men will treat each other.

"The play takes unexpected turns that are intended to challenge the audience's assumptions," says Lesli Mones, Red Door Project Co-founder. "We all hold on so tightly to what we're sure is right, but the play offers an opportunity to make a crack in that certainty." Presented in venues across the country to the general public, judges, and law enforcement professionals, the next performance of The Evolve Experience will be at The Reser Center for the Performing Arts, in Beaverton, OR, on February 23 and 24 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets and more information available here: https://www.reddoorproject.org/evolve-experience-show/

If this sounds a little too heavy for an evening out, Jones explains why and how The Evolve Experience is compelling theater. "We have this live, unpredictable, often surprising dialogue between two people who start miles apart. We also have videos of dramatic monologues based on actual interviews with law enforcement professionals, judges, and community members. There's music, lights, sound-the elements of storytelling and theatricality that give the audience the opportunity to listen, absorb the material, and emerge changed."

The Red Door team hopes that people will see and hear something they hadn't considered before, and become aware that doubling down on our beliefs doesn't lead to the change we wish to see in the world. "The paradigm of us vs. them, refusing to engage with people with different political views, has brought us to the great divide we're now experiencing," Lesli Mones says. "It's not about becoming so open you don't have your own point of view, but to create room to hear and consider others."

Mones, an executive coach and leadership consultant, guides an audience conversation after every performance, to help create space for connection across differences. "The Red Door Project takes on heated social issues without advocating for a particular position, perspective or identity," she says. "Instead, we support people to explore the fixed beliefs and patterned reactions that lead to polarization and breakdown in our relationships."

The Red Door Project is an award-winning nonprofit founded in Portland, Oregon, in 2011. Their mission is to use narrative art to bridge divides. From 2016-2019, the Red Door toured a production called Hands Up: 7 Playwrights, 7 Testaments, featuring monologues about the experiences of Black citizens with the criminal justice system. The stories performed were autobiographical accounts of experiences with racial profiling. During one of the talkbacks that followed each show, a white man stood up and announced that he was a Portland police officer. The room grew tense and excruciatingly still. Surprisingly, the officer said, "I want every cop I work with to see this show. How can this happen?" From that question, a relationship was forged that culminated in a companion show to Hands Up, called Cop Out: Beyond Black, White & Blue, which featured the lived experiences of police officers. The two shows eventually merged and became The Evolve Experience.

To learn more about The Red Door Project and Evolve visit reddoorproject.org.

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