The Remember Project was inspired by a one-act play festival at Festival Theatre in St. Croix Falls, WI in 2013. One of the plays submitted that year was, Steering Into the Skid by Deborah Ann Percy and Arnold Johnston. Executive Artistic Director, Danette McCarthy, was struck by the straight-forward honesty of the material and the simplicity of the staging. In the audience that evening was Gary Kelsey, who had worked in the field of Aging most of his career and immediately shared his opinion that this play would be excellent for education and outreach to help communities better understand dementia.
Ultimately, Danette read the anthology “The MemoryCare Plays” which included two additional plays: In the Garden by Matthew Widman and Riding the Waves by L.E. Grabowski-Cotton. She collaborated with the St. Croix Valley Foundation to design and produce a pilot project in 2015, which reached 15 communities with 30 performances in the lower St. Croix Valley over 10 short weeks.
“The Remember Project is a unique opportunity to have a deep conversation and engage people in a conversation in a different kind of way. That was what was really wonderful about the project.”
Angie Pilgrim
Director of Community Impact, St. Croix Valley Foundation
The program format embraces a recognition that the deeper art is the rich combination of watching a play and then talking about it. A Remember Project event provides physical and emotional space to guide communities through challenging conversations. And, it is through these conversations that connections are made, walls come down, and communities grow stronger, together.
After the pilot project came to an end in December 2015, requests for performance events continued throughout Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota for the next four years. It became evident that this concept works, based on audience response, media interest, and community partner enthusiasm. During the pandemic, the project expanded its reach and continued to serve by creating theatrical videos. This model was tested, evaluated, and refined for inclusion in programming options. Happily, The Remember Project is now housed at Trellis in Arden Hills, MN.
