The main themes in A Facility for Living, the latest production from Flint Repertory Theatre, will sound familiar considering some of the political upheaval and news coverage we are experiencing at the moment.
The play is set in the near future, one in which Social Security and Medicare are no longer available. A new federal law called the “Senior Provision Act (SPA)” requires all aged and infirm people to be housed in federal nursing homes, which have been created from converted penitentiaries. A Facility for Living follows residents of SPA Facility #273 as they try to plan a holiday play for their families. The production takes on the serious issues and challenges around aging in America, but it does so in a way that makes audiences laugh.
“The idea is interesting because the play is dealing with a lot of issues, it’s dealing with aging, it’s dealing with the government, healthcare, and the changes that we’re going through,” said Michael Kelly, a longtime Flint resident and fixture in the local theatre scene who plays Wally in A Facility for Living. “The play was written I think about 10, 12 years ago, but it seems fairly prescient. And it’s a comedy, it’s a Christmas show, but it’s a dark comedy. It helps you understand other people, and I think that’s one of the great virtues of art. It’s entertaining, it’s a funny play with lots of laughs in it. It’s a little dark laughter, but maybe first it will entertain, and secondly, I think it will help you understand what’s going on (with challenges around aging in America) better.”
The play is being performed at the University of Michigan-Flint’s theatre while ongoing renovations at Flint Repertory Theatre are completed. It opened this week, but there are still performances on the following dates, with tickets available online:
- Sunday, December 14 at 2:00 p.m (ASL Interpreted Performance)
- Friday, December 19 at 7:30 p.m
- Saturday, December 20 at 2:00 p.m
- Saturday, December 20 at 7:30 p.m
- Sunday, December 21 at 2:00 p.m.
The play, which was written by Katie Forgette, is directed by Demetria Thomas and also stars Christopher Eastland, Linda Rabin Hammell, Jennifer Little, Toni Rae Salmi, Rico Bruce Wade, Connie Cowper, and Craig Ester. For Kelly, the chance to work with the Flint Rep is one that he finds hard to pass up.
“I would tend to say if Flint Rep wanted me to do something, I would do it because Flint Rep is a really good company to work with,” Kelly said. “It’s really nice to work with a very professional team. I mean, our lighting director and sound director and stage manager, I mean, these people are all really good. They’re all operating at a very high level.”
Kelly has appeared in more than 50 stage productions, with the Flint Rep and several other theatre groups. He won a Wilde Award for his role in the Flint Rep’s production of The Chairs in 2019 and has been a narrator with Flint Symphony Orchestra. He’s worked with local theatre groups, including Buckham Alley Theatre and Flint Community Players, and did Shakespeare in the Park with Kearsley Park Players for many years, among other projects. He’s excited to see the theatre artform still going strong in Flint.
“Theatre has often been, and I think in this town particularly, a safe space,” Kelly said. “There’s always been a fair amount of unorthodox people in theatre, but it’s a place that can handle that and accept that. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you can do it, if you can stand up and jump in the pool and perform, then there’s a place for you.”
Kelly was born and raised in Flint, and although he’s had stints in other parts of the country while he was in the Army or for work or his education, he’s always found his way back here. Through his years in the city, he’s seen a lot of changes and ups and downs, but is heartened by how the city’s residents always seem to bounce back and show strength.
“It’s been wonderful being part of seeing Flint’s first survival and then recovery and we’re not all there yet, but there’s hope,” he said. “I’m watching it every time I drive down through a neighborhood. I went through my old neighborhood, Mott Park, and the house I grew up in is not in good shape, but the neighborhood itself is so much better than it was even 10 years ago. I’ve seen towns go through things, places like Newark, Gary, but this town somehow never gave up. I’ve always been proud to say I’m from Flint.”
Part of where he’s found community over the years is in the many spaces Flint offers for artists and performers. For him, one of appeals of theatre as a storytelling mechanism is that there’s an opportunity to have different experiences with the same story every performance.
“Even if you do everything right, every night is still different because the audience is different,” Kelly said. “The audience makes it. It’s different on a Sunday afternoon matinee than a Saturday night audience, you know? The whole mood is different. I would just encourage people to support live theatre. Come out and see real people. It’s like three-dimensional television, but there’s no rewind.”
That in-the-moment nature that theatre provides, of having to get it right with whatever particular audience is in front of you, with no record that it happened after a performance is over, is particularly intriguing to Kelly.
“It’s totally ephemeral,” he said. “When the curtain goes down, there’s nothing left, there’s no record. Every performance is different and to stand out in spaces you have to have good costumes, good lighting, all of that tech stuff. But in the final analysis, a human being stands in open space and speaks to a group of people. You are out there maybe by yourself, maybe with a group of comrades, and it’s like a dance. It’s, it’s live. I’ve worked in radio, I’ve done television, but often it’s recorded, so you have a chance to fix something that goes wrong. In theatre, you can’t, if something goes wrong, you have to figure a way to get out of it and if a little piece is missing, you have to think on your feet.”
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