A rabbit bounded out from the wooded overgrowth onto the lawn of the church. Morgana led us around the vacant shotgun houses, a breeze blowing through their open windows. It was such a bucolic scene that I almost forgot I was in Dallas — except for the large modular condominiums looming on the other side of the railroad tracks.
A few nights later, the same road was lined with cars. Neighbors exchanged greetings. Roosters crowed, dogs barked, children ran along the porches of the now lively shotgun houses. In comparison to the previous quiet, the homes were now filled with the bickering and laughter that come with daily life.
But this wasn’t daily life. This was a performance art production. A remembrance.
![From left: Jennifer Culver plays Alice and Gelacio Eric Gibson is Kenneth at the Family...](https://dmn-dallas-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/HSBIGSBGRBCUJDY3NQIPSQALAU.jpg?auth=c53e35910b524374605a213172ecaf948c7c4fbd19d93a43b4ab5e1ef58c3694&width=830&quality=80)
The latest iteration of Family Dollar, a project by the community collective Artstillery, brings together oral history, architectural preservation and immersive theater to tell the story of one West Dallas community threatened by the levee on one side and the tides of gentrification on the other. Artstillery partnered on the project with the Nasher Sculpture Center’s public art initiative, Nasher Public. The collaboration will result in a virtual-reality component to Family Dollar that will enable guests to continue to interact with the stories and performances even after the show’s conclusion.
Founded by Ílknur Ozgür in 2016, Artstillery is an innovative volunteer organization dedicated to creative placemaking.
“We’re not just an arts organization, but an arts and service organization that really taps into the motto of the social change ecosystem,” says Family Dollar co-director and Artstillery core team member Morgana Wilborn.
Pastor Hersey L. Hammons III of Lone Star Missionary Baptist Church, Artstillery’s community partner, wrote in support of Family Dollar that “Ílknur and her team have found value in the common life of people and have chosen to EXALT their stories.”
And exalt them they did. But first, they had to unearth them.
![From left, Ilknur Ozgur (writer/director) and Morgana Wilborn (writer/director) photographed...](https://dmn-dallas-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/642F6FDDFJAKPLHSVKJNJD6RUU.jpg?auth=1590b251796dce86ed5a7e1e8bbe6033ebaba660f3dcfcfbef5fc9665436a043&width=830&quality=80)
Ozgür, Wilborn and co-writer and actress Jennifer Culver wrote Family Dollar based on five years of interviews, community conversations and healing workshops with residents along West Main Street. These interviews revealed firsthand accounts of forced busing, cultural assimilation and virulent racism.
Actor Jackie Kemp, who plays Rogelio, says his character’s story was “very much my story. Just like the shotgun houses in McKinney.” The grandson of Mexican immigrants who traveled from Ohio to Texas following crops remembered what Texas was like when he was a boy: “[At] Sam Houston Elementary, you could be speaking to someone in the hall, and you could get in trouble if you are speaking in Spanish.”
Perhaps because of these realities, residents of West Main Street speak fondly of a pervasive sense of community closeness that for years kept its members safe. This closeness wasn’t just sentiment; it came with extensive labor organizing among Latino residents and a collective fund to help neighbors in the Black community pay property taxes.
These stories of survival and joy intertwine within Family Dollar as the narratives of three families — one Black, one Latino and one white — simultaneously unfold around the set.
![From left, Kay played by Rebecca McDonald and Rosemary played by Priscilla Rice at the...](https://dmn-dallas-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/KSAAH4XTZFCSDGNU52LPJHD25Q.jpg?auth=af48c8eac7c29e44fb4f174806be664633b17fcc6f3850c7505a91544b8167d4&width=830&quality=80)
The 360-degree set emerges out of an effort to save the two remaining shotgun houses on West Main from demolition. With the help of architects at Mead & Hunt and community members such as the lifelong resident who goes by the name Mr. Teddy, Artstillery rebuilt the houses on the property of Lone Star Baptist Church.
The frenetic energy of the immersive performances reinforces the viewer’s proximity to — and even involvement in — the precarities experienced by the residents of West Dallas. We peer into the houses and witness the characters’ struggles with predatory developers, economic oppression, addiction and police violence. As we follow the actors window to window, scene to scene, a question emerges: What would we do to protect our neighbors?
At the play’s zenith, an outsider tries to trick Alice, an elderly white woman with dementia, into selling her home for $14,000, despite prices for surrounding homes soaring into the $300,000s. To protect Alice, her neighbors immediately intervene. They curse the outsider and beg Alice not to listen to her. One incensed neighbor even takes off her chancla and throws it at the interloper. I happened to be standing in the middle of the scene, the engulfing argument whipping up such a frenzy that I couldn’t help but join in berating the businesswoman for trying to take advantage of an elder.
The inspiration for this scene is taken directly from the testimony of West Dallas residents. One resident told Artstillery that newcomers to the neighborhood would walk onto his property and ask him if they could buy his home for that exact amount, less than the average cost of one year’s rent in Dallas.
![Rooster (Red) played by Raven McCarthy at the Family Dollar performance on West Main Street...](https://dmn-dallas-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/NU544RI3BNA4XPC33STLQZS3FE.jpg?auth=68c9d6f5498ed1655529773722d4185406bd9be00304be4033afdf4f38d7e99b&width=830&quality=80)
Ozgür spoke passionately regarding this encounter. “This Black community in West Dallas has never been told you don’t have to sell your land. You can actually be the developer. And when we had that conversation with them ... first they cried. And they said, ‘No one’s ever told us that we could do that.’ I was like, ‘You hold the land. Don’t sell. Build.’”
Stories like these have shaped Artstillery’s approach to engagement. Its major focus is on building community capacity while breaking down the fourth wall and deconstructing false narratives.
“When you’re a true arts and service organization, organism and ecosystem,” Wilborn says, “that means something different than [being] an institution where everything is ingrained, everything is set in stone.”
Although it uses the tools of performance art, Artstillery doesn’t view itself as a theater company. “We’re whatever our community needs us to be,” Ozgür says. That has entailed everything from buying a refugee family a new car to paying Mr. Teddy’s phone bill to helping Lone Star Baptist secure adequate street lighting at night.
“This is about a community uplifting other communities and communities uplifting one another,” Ozgür says over beers at Manhattan Project Beer Co., one of Artstillery’s sponsors.
Family Dollar runs for another four weekends, plenty of time to see it twice. To miss it is to miss performance art at its most impactful. To see it is to celebrate the Black and Latino communities that have left their mark on Dallas forever.
Details
Family Dollar runs through July 31 at 323 W. Main St. in Dallas. Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. $25 general admission, $10 for students. For more information or to buy tickets, visit artstillery.org/familydollar.