The Spot

Lots of theatre companies produce political works and then claim to be involved in social activism. But SF Recovery Theatre is not just talking the talk; it's walking the walk. The company's latest production, Geoffrey Grier's The Spot, is about a teenage couple whose lives change dramatically when she gets pregnant at fifteen. Torn between supporting his new family and going after his dream to be a big basketball star, the boy gets overwhelmed by peer pressure and starts dealing drugs to make some bank. Soon, he gets wrongly blamed for the deaths of two people –– and carted off to jail. When he gets out, his twin daughters are grown, his old girlfriend's got a new man, and he's tempted, once again, to do something bad. But this time, he starts listening to himself, instead of to the word on the street. The play is part fiction and part fact, and the cast contains people who have actually been incarcerated or homeless, so it's the real deal.  Grier contends that the artistic process of working in theatre gives folks a chance to   take down the masks they wear on the street and learn how to communicate from the heart, in the moment. What we get in return is unmasked theatre that is illuminating real issues and changing people's lives.