Local rehab facility Reco Intensive teams up with local theatre company New City Players for a collaborative content series to pursue a shared goal of spreading hope and awareness about addiction and encouraging treatment.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla., May 16, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Reco Intensive, a Delray Beach addiction treatment center offering a variety of outpatient rehabilitation options to those pursuing recovery from substance use disorders, is partnering with Broward County theatre company New City Players to develop a blog series about addiction in conjunction with the latter's upcoming production of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning work Water By The Spoonful.
This latest initiative is part of an established pattern of community engagement for Reco, which has also supported the missions of various other local arts and charity organizations and consistently works to give back to its former clients with its active alumni programming. The partnership is also part of a pattern of local outreach from New City Players (NCP), which distinguishes itself from other area theatre companies with their stated mission of creating community through transformative theatre in the service of their vision of helping South Florida to become a more empathetic and thoughtful community.
While in-person events aimed at creating dialogue about the social and cultural issues explored in their shows are a regular part of NCP's programming, the shift towards online content brought about by the recent pandemic inspired producing artistic director Timothy Mark Davis to consider taking some of this work into the digital sphere in conjunction with Water By The Spoonful.
Much of the play takes place in an online recovery chat room, following four characters who rely on each other's support and guidance as they struggle to maintain their sobriety from crack cocaine. This subject matter, combined with the scope and urgency of South Florida's current addiction crisis, made substance use disorder a natural choice of issue for the company to focus on and Reco a natural choice for a community partner.
"We're the expert storytellers, but we're not the front line resource for helping those with substance use disorder, or any social issue, let's be honest! When we can leverage our storytelling skills and point folks towards a partner who knows what they're doing, it's a sweet spot for us," Davis explained.
After Davis's initial spark, the idea of a collaborative blog series exploring issues of addiction was further developed and eventually executed by Ilana Jael, who is both a resident content writer at Reco Intensive and a New City Players company member. Jael is also enthusiastic about the project, which she has fittingly entitled "Building Connections" and which has thus far encompassed topics like the importance of being informed about harm reduction, Broward County's role in the origin of America's opioid epidemic, and how broader cultural issues like racism play into the politics of addiction.
"It's been great to have my worlds collide like this and to be able to work on some more in-depth content about topics that feel so relevant. As important as the blogging I do for Reco feels, sometimes it also feels like I'm just preaching to the choir or shouting into the void. But by connecting some of my work writing about addiction to this theatre project, maybe that will mean some of our audiences who wouldn't be interested in these issues otherwise end up more informed about them," Jael explains.
Jael is also hopeful that the partnership will help fight the intense stigma surrounding substance use disorder by spreading awareness about the condition and messages of hope about recovery, and that it will bring greater community attention to Reco Intensive's treatment program.
"One of the other pieces I'm working on for this project is an interview piece about a former Reco client who's just now celebrating their one year sobriety anniversary, and it was clear from the way she talked about Reco how absolutely critical they were to her recovery—how much the staff here actually cares about the people they're helping and how much of a rarity that actually is in this industry," she reflects.
"By encouraging our community to have more of an understanding of addiction through our artistic work and through collaborations like these, maybe there's some small way NCP can make it easier for people to come forward about their struggles and find their way to places like Reco where they can pursue the recovery they deserve," she says.
To learn more about the Reco Intensive's comprehensive addiction treatment program, you can call (866) 396-2008, or visit them online at https://recointensive.com/. You can also learn more about New City Players' upcoming production of Water By The Spoonful, which runs from April 28 to May 15 at Wilton Manors venue Island City Stage, at https://www.newcityplayers.org/.
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