Reflections on an Evening at the Taggart

Photographs by Wildstyle Paschall

— by Abbey Chambers,

In 2018, Indy Shakespeare Company (“Indy Shakes”), Indiana Landmarks, and Indy Parks Foundation (now “Indy Parks Alliance”) received a $9.24 million-dollar grant from Lilly Endowment to rehabilitate and reactivate the Taggart Memorial at Riverside Regional Park, transforming the space into an outdoor amphitheater and establishing Indy Shakes as the space’s anchoring organization. Indy Shakes hosted its first series of performances in the park during the summer of 2019 on a temporary outdoor stage, with the expectation of hosting performances on the new Taggart Memorial Amphitheatre stage in subsequent years. Of course, we all know what happened in 2020. 

Pandemic. Lockdown. Quarantine. Isolation. Change. Upheaval. Protest. 

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From the Indy Shakes Facebook page:

Here is tonight’s (July 29) wonderful preshow entertainment, food, and beverage line-up!

Join us as early as 6pm to enjoy the pre-show! MIDSUMMER starts at 8pm.

If you can’t join us in person, consider tuning into our livestream tonight or tomorrow! Links below!

July 29 Livestream (ASL-interpreted): https://fb.me/e/12J688T6R

July 30 Livestream: https://fb.me/e/HyKcxIJp

Indiana weather, as we know, is unpredictable! Please keep an eye on your email and our social channels for any weather updates for tonight!

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In some ways, the individual and collective traumas of 2020 have certainly carried through into 2021 and surely will impact most of us for years to come. In other ways, we are doing our best to recover from those traumas by enjoying some of our former amusements, such as live theater. 

An outdoor venue seems like a relatively safe space to enjoy a former comfort while still in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. And so, on the evening of July 22, I loaded my girls into our minivan and took them to Riverside Regional Park to see and experience the new Taggart Memorial Amphitheatre and enjoy a modern rendition of a Shakespeare classic, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

As we drove into the park and found a parking space, I wondered what kind of crowd would be there. This part of Indianapolis, which I had come to know well through my doctoral research, has long been home to some of the city’s longest established African American families and communities, and for decades the park has been a centerpiece of many of those residents’ lives. It is not too bold to claim that it has been for a long time a predominantly a Black space. 

Two cars down from us, I noticed a young, white family unloading their vehicle. It was a family of four — a man, a woman, and two little kids. They had their lawn chairs and other gear loaded on a wagon. They seemed practiced at this kind of thing. All I had was a rolled-up blanket. 

We arrived at the event an hour early because I had read that there would be pre-show entertainment — spoken word poetry and presentations from the park’s summer campers. I also knew my kids would be angry with me if they didn’t get to play on the playground outside the amphitheater. (The last time we were at Riverside Park, on Juneteenth, it was hot, we had a lot to see and do and people to talk to, and we were getting tired, so I told them they could play on the playground next time. This was “next time.”) 

I sat on a bench while my kids played, and I listened to what was going on inside the amphitheater. It was a session of spoken word poetry. I recognized the voice of the woman speaking to be that of a Riverside Regional Park manager, who had been working at the park for many years. She always has seemed to me to be a quiet person, until she gets in front of a crowd, and then she bursts open with energy and charisma. The next thing I knew, she was leading the crowd in the Riverside chant, an energetic call-and-response cheer, which she and some campers created several years ago:

R-I!  (R-I!)

V-E-R!  (V-E-R!)

S-I-D-E!  (S-I-D-E!)

S-I-D-E!  (S-I-D-E!) 

Photos courtesy of Wildstyle Paschall

It was like a pep rally, which may seem like a strange opening act for a Shakespeare performance. But we must remember that the Taggart Memorial and Riverside Regional Park are adjacent to the Riverside neighborhood, which is not like most neighborhoods. This neighborhood has spirit. This is a neighborhood that hosts an annual parade and a reunion. Not a block party. I said, a reunion. People come from all over the city, state, and even country to see both family and former neighbors, who are as close as family. 

Still sitting on the playground bench, my thoughts were interrupted by my kids, imploring me “Come watch me climb!” I watched them, but then, being the social observer that I am, I was again distracted. 

I noticed a large group of women wearing burkas and children of all ages using one of the park’s pavilions. They were playing games on the grass and running and rolling down a nearby hill. Some of the kids came over to the playground and then ran back to their families, which drew my kids’ attention. My oldest, an observant and curious eight-year-old, asked me why the women were dressed like that. I explained to her about how we as people express our cultures and beliefs through the things we wear. I realized she had probably never seen someone in a burka. Where we live in Zionsville, the population is not diverse; it’s mostly affluent, white, and Christian. 

Eventually, I convinced my kids to go into the amphitheater. We found a spot on the lawn near the stage and unrolled our blanket. I looked around to see who was there. I was prepared to observe a mostly white crowd, but that was not the case. I recognized many area residents in attendance, showing their curiosity about, if not their support for, what Indy Shakes had done and was doing with the space. 

Indy Shakes has made an intentional effort to ensure that the space, which easily could have been whitewashed, transformed, and made unwelcome to area residents, is open to all. An important driver of that openness is that Indy Shakes performances are free. Additionally, the organization modernized the look and feel of the Shakespeare play by casting diverse performers that reflect the diversity of the audiences Indy Shakes wants to attract. Cast members were outfitted in costumes and styled in ways that felt familiar and contemporary, instead of Shakespearean. Truly, the only thing Shakespearean about Indy Shakes’ performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream were the actors’ lines, which were even delivered with a contemporary sensibility that felt relatable and accessible. Shakespeare comedies are, after all, full of humor, and indeed it seemed like the audience erupted into laughter at all the right times. 

Even more significant than what Indy Shakes has done to make their performances accessible to diverse audiences is the way in which Indy Shakes’ leadership has worked to become embedded in the area, attending community meetings and events, getting to know residents on a personal level, and learning what is important about both the Taggart space and Riverside Regional Park. This high level of careful and intentional engagement enables the organization to work effectively with residents and support their efforts and wishes for their neighborhood and the park that has been so important to community life. 

Before the play started, Indy Shakes’ Director took to the stage to conduct the usual thanking-of-the-institutional-sponsors-and-partners ritual. Then she thanked area residents, even calling out by name individuals from the crowd. This gratitude toward residents was an acknowledgment that, without their support, things that night probably would have been different. Likely, the audience would have been less diverse and the establishment of a Shakespeare company at the Taggart Memorial would have been highly contentious. 

Presently, the Taggart Memorial Amphitheatre at Riverside Regional Park has the potential to be one of the city’s most diverse and culturally aware and open spaces. It would be a damn shame if all this character, diversity, and potential were to be washed away through irresponsible, negligent, inequitable, and exclusionary community and economic development and programming, both in the park and the surrounding area, which is under serious threat of gentrification (something city leaders have scarcely acknowledged). 

It will be interesting to see what the space looks like in three, five, ten years. Maintaining the level of diversity that I observed that evening at the Taggart will not happen on its own. Because of the inequities and exclusions that are baked into our economy and society, it will take careful and intentional efforts to ensure that the Taggart Memorial Amphitheatre, Riverside Regional Park, and the surrounding neighborhoods remain open, accessible, and welcoming to all types of people. 

Without a high level of care and intention, the area’s development undoubtedly — and unfortunately — will align with the status quo: a market takeover of the area’s spaces, characterized by a pay-to-play, pay-to-stay culture where skyrocketing housing prices and commercial, entertainment, and other amenities primarily cater to affluent, white audiences. We’ve seen this before. It is a well-known, predictable pattern, and the responsibility for disrupting it rests squarely within the realm of city leaders and decision-makers in public, for-profit, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors, who must learn not only how to effectively partner with but also listen to community members who understand well how and why inequity and exclusion happen and can advise on how to avoid it. 

The development happening at the Taggart Memorial space, Riverside Regional Park, and in the surrounding neighborhoods is coming at a critical time, when we have an opportunity to show that the traumas of 2020 were not suffered in vain. Indeed, we did learn something about the depth of the inequities which the pandemic and protests exposed, and we are poised to plan, act, and engage in ways that will create more equitable and inclusive spaces and futures. 

Abbey Chambers is an independent researcher who studies socioeconomic inequities and exclusions in economic development and policymaking.