In 2019, Renée Westbrook won best solo performer for her San Diego International Fringe Festival show "Shelter." This Friday, you can head to Los Angeles to catch a new performance of this compassionate exploration of homelessness.
Renée Westbrook found herself homeless in 2009. She took that experience and turned it into the play "Shelter" when she was in grad school at San Diego State University in 2016. The play follows writer Davina Grey on her first night of being homeless on the streets of LA as she sets a short-term goal of getting on #4 Metro Bus.
In the play Davina tries to motivate herself: "You can do this. Just put one foot in front of the other. You can ... Please, just ... You can do this. You're well educated. You have a degree in a storage unit that's about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. You can do this ... I can't do it. I can't do it, God. I'm not going to make it. Please help me. I'm lost. I can't do it."
Although Westbrook did not consider herself an actress, she took on the multiple characters in the play to create a deeply affecting one-woman show. Here are clips from her debut of the play at San Diego International Fringe Festival.
"I wanted it to be about the various definitions of shelter," Westbrook explained. "The different characters have their own meaning of what shelter means. To Davina Grey, the main character. It's a home, a roof. To Laz-R-Us, it's nobody's going to ever hurt me again. That's his shelter, his karate."
But then her character of David Gonzalez, the Bipolar Vato, asks us to consider that shelter is the love a family provides when things go bad.
"That's one of the things that I wanted to just express is that contemporary homelessness as well has a deep meaning for everyone because so many people are experiencing it now," Westbrook added. "But primarily, I wanted to get out there the various definitions of what shelter is because we all have different ideas of what it should be."
I have been following this play's progress over the years and am thrilled audiences will have another opportunity to see this beautifully written and acted exploration of homelessness.
On Friday, August 16, at 7:30 p.m., Bel-Vue Community Presbyterian Church (located at 675 E. 118th St. Los Angeles) will host a performance of "Shelter" and a talkback session at the end of the show.
