Works & Process at the Guggenheim: Jeremy O. Harris' New Play Reading.

On February 10, Jeremy O. Harris previewed an excerpt of his new play Spirit of the People with a reading at the Guggenheim, the culmination of a workshop that was part of the production’s Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at Potash Hill. There was another reading of the excerpt at MASS MoCA for audiences in the Berkshires the evening before.

Following the excerpt, Harris, the inaugural Creative Director of Williamstown's Creative Collective, was joined onstage by Raphael Picciarelli, Managing Director of Strategy & Transformation.

In talking about his inspiration for the play, Harris shared, "There's a beach in Mexico that me and my friends have been going to since like 2013 ... and I love it ... but I've watched it change significantly over the last decade, and one of the major harbingers of that change was this mezcalería opening up that this Canadian woman started, and she told me the story of mezcal, and how mezcal came to be. And it's a very long story. It's really good. But it's in the play so like that feels like a spoiler...But basically what she told me was that after the Spanish legalized tequila, after saying all indigenous spirits were illegal, they gave Don Julio a farm, they gave Jose Cuervo a farm–a little plantation to make tequila–the workers couldn't afford tequila, this indigenous spirit they were drinking. So they would sneak and make mezcal and drink it... They would call tequila the 'spirit of the kings' and mezcal the 'spirit of the people'.”

Harris concluded this section of the panel by saying, "You can't call a play Spirit of the People in this moment and not hold some responsibility–or hold yourself to some responsibility–to ask questions about what the spirit of the people is right now."

Spirit of the People is included in all season passes and will become available for single ticket purchase on April 15.