In the Tenderloin, Skywatchers is on a journey to joy. You're invited.

I walked into the rehearsal late. An incredible melody, sweet and resonant and sorrowful, was emanating from the center of a loose circle of people gathered in the theater inside the Kelly Cullen Community building. Melanie DeMore was singing about grief and loss in a way that grabbed me and held me in place. As she finished, the circle closed around her, folding everyone together in a supportive embrace. After a short moment, the whole group launched into song — a rhythmic one with rich harmonies. 

And that wasn’t even the start of the show. Skywatchers was just warming up.

The Tenderloin ensemble’s multidisciplinary, mixed-ability, mixed-age members have put on shows together in the community, in the streets, and on stages, building solidarity and affirming each other’s shared humanity through the practice of performing arts. 

This rehearsal, once it began, was for their performance “Calling Us In: An Invitation to Joy” at A.C.T.’s Strand theater on May 9. The story begins at a bus stop and follows neighbors who each carry their own (invisible) “backpacks” of different life experiences. Part play, part poetry, part dance, and part song, “Calling Us In” explores joy, how to get to it, and what happens along the way. The show is co-created and directed by Sarah Crowell and features songs composed by singer-songwriter DeMore, who is also Skywatchers’ musical director. 

Crowell, who has been doing collaborative dance theater for 35 years, was hired to help develop this performance together with other Skywatchers lead artists. She has been working with the group for more than a year now, taking her time to get to know everyone and realize their ideas together. 

“I get to know how they speak, what they care about, what they’re passionate about,” Crowell said. “When I’m writing in collaboration with folks, I can catch their voices, I can catch their passions, and reflect it in dialogue.”

Many scenes in the performance came from an iterative process of building on the artists’ responses to Crowell’s prompts. 

Lead Artist and Director of Community Care Shavonne Allen’s piece, “Beast in the Mirror,” grew out of her response to Crowell asking the performers what gets in the way of their joy. For Allen, it was her internal dialogue, which led her to perceive her own reflection as beastly. Years of racist childhood taunting about her appearance, disparaging her Black features, while mainstream culture enforced a Eurocentric beauty standard, had undermined her confidence. 

“It speaks to the internal dialogues many of us have that are not true,” Allen said. “The lies, however they got there, affect our sense of self.”

Through their practice, Skywatchers artists discover that they have experiences in common, even though each person may come from different circumstances. Newcomers might be surprised to find that, yes, there are others in the group who know what it’s like to live in an SRO or a shelter, to be stigmatized for substance use, to survive domestic violence, or to struggle with poor mental health.

“We start losing the labels,” Allen said, “not seeing them as white or a drug addict or SRO resident, but as a human being, a fellow spirit and soul. A companion on this journey. There’s power in that.” 

And as members try new things (singing, dancing, puppeteering, what have you), Allen said, they grow closer and build new skills — but they also learn to play. 

That playfulness is what makes watching this group a genuine delight. 

The day I visited, I got to see what Crowell called a “stumble-through” — like a run-through, but where some forgotten lines and struggles with choreography were to be expected. So I didn’t learn about the full plot (which I probably wouldn’t tell you about anyway, because spoilers).

The room was buzzing with energy, all the way through a three-plus-hour rehearsal. Every few minutes, Crowell asked them to take a deep breath or led them in a call-and-response clapping exercise to keep everyone’s feet on the ground.

When one performer, neo soul jazz enthusiast Dot Com, wasn’t in his assigned spot on stage, Crowell lightly smacked him with a rolled-up script. “You’re over here, homie,” she told him, and he sauntered over into position with an exaggerated “whuuudddever” that sent a few of his colleagues into giggles. 

At one point, Crowell made a note to Nazelah Jamison, lead artist and director of communications and youth programming for Skywatchers: One particular line should have “a little sass,” she said. Jamison didn’t skip a beat. “Oh. Of course,” she said, playing up the attitude Crowell was asking for. More giggles. 

Well into the afternoon, Crowell remarked, “I don’t know why it takes an hour to get through two pages, but that’s theater I guess.” Ensemble member Maurice Hudson retorted softly, “Well, that’s on you!” Laughter, again. “I take full responsibility,” Crowell said with a smile. 

Neither the gentle teasing nor Crowell’s guidance ever disrupted the sense of deep mutual respect that filled the room, or the feeling that everyone believed in what they were bringing to the stage. In fact, the joking and easy way of being around one another were part of the work.

“The title is ‘An Invitation to Joy.’” Crowell said. “How do we embody that as we create the material? The process should embody that as well.” 

I assume little moments like these won’t make it onto the stage, but from what I saw, I know this much: It’s going to be a lot of fun.