Famous Actor Directing New North Loop Play Featuring Unhoused Actors
Harry Waters, Jr. may be traveling the world celebrating the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future, but he made time for staying close to home to direct a play here in the North Loop that includes unhoused actors and examines the complexities of homelessness. Waters is now retired from a long career acting, directing and teaching, but he remains best known for his role as Marvin Berry singing “Earth Angel” in the 1985 movie.
Credit: Universal Studios
“I’m happy to be here in the Twin Cities because I still get a theatrical foundation and then I also get to participate around the world with this wonderful opportunity that I had 40 years ago,” said Waters. “The role still resonates so well with people in 2025.”
The play, “DisPlace: A North Loop Fantasy Quest,” is a production of zAmya Theater Project, in partnership with Avivo Village and the North Loop Neighborhood Association. The cast includes actors who are unhoused, and the story fantasizes about conquering the circumstances that lead to homelessness.
“The story is set up as a game inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. We have two crews that are on a mission to eliminate the monster that’s affecting the land of the Northern Loop,” Waters explained. “There’s a Condo Crew and an Avivo Crew.”
zAmya Theater Project Artistic Director Maren Ward says North Loop residents will recognize their neighborhood throughout the play. “The landscape is the North Loop. It’s in kind of a bizarre-world North Loop, as the backdrop of a role-playing game.” The two crews are “navigating challenges in the neighborhood and they end up needing to work together to bring the monsters down.”
Ward is especially proud of the actors who are unhoused. “What they’re bringing is the lived experience. Actors trying to play a role that’s not them have to access truth somewhere in their life. Someone who’s showing up on stage who’s bringing an experience, they don’t have to translate it, it’s just there.”
Waters has enjoyed directing actors with a range of experiences. “One of the things that’s exciting for me is how do I see what they’re bringing, their actor impulses, and make them stronger, so that everything is in the extreme, because we’re talking about a fantasy land.”
Credit: zAmya Theater Project
The name of the production is a play on words about how we live in “this place,” while acknowledging the history of displacement. “There has been displacement over quite a number of decades into another century,” said Waters. “The land where Natives were displaced, then the warehouses that were built were displaced because of industry, then there were railroads that got displaced because there were other ways of moving goods, then the artists came in, and they were displaced by the developers. So this place has so many layers of reality that we can’t ignore, but how do we address them?”
The play is an immersive experience; the audience is part of the show. “We’re not going to bring anyone on stage, but we are looking for how they’re participating in the flow of the game,” Waters said. “Hopefully with this we can walk away with how then do we talk about solutions, how do we talk about other ways we can be neighbors with each other.”
Waters will welcome the audience to each show, and facilitate discussions after the show. Artistic Director Ward said, “I always hope that people take away from our shows the sense that we’re more united than divided, more common than different. And with this show in particular, we’re wanting to be building those direct connections between people.”
Now retired, Waters is Professor Emeritus from the Theater and Dance Department at Macalester College. After retirement, he seized the opportunity to work with zAmya Theater Project. “There are only a few organizations you want to continue to be connected with, and this one has a very specific audience, but also a demographic we don’t ordinarily have a way to talk with or to hear or to listen from. So the idea that there is this organization that is truly telling the stories of the unhoused in the Twin Cities just hit me in the right spot.”
The play was made possible through a Partnership Engagement Grant from the City of Minneapolis, which pairs neighborhood groups (in this case, the North Loop Neighborhood Association) with community organizations (zAmya Theater Project and Avivo Village). “I just want to lift up the City of Minneapolis with their support of this project,” Ward said.
The play runs March 13-16 at Luminary Arts Center in the North Loop, 700 N. 1st Street, Minneapolis. Tickets are available here.
By Mary Binkley, North Loop Neighborhood Association
Harry Waters Jr. with NLNA Board President Diane Merrifield Credit: zAmya Theater Project