Although homeless people might seem like unlikely actors, Yoho Myrvaagnes ’01 saw acting as a way to help them express their concerns and frustrations. With pluck and patience, he has brought theater to people whose daily lives are usually concerned with finding food and warmth.

In May 2001, just before graduating from Harvard, Myrvaagnes attended a speech by acclaimed director Peter M. Sellars ’80. Myrvaagnes says Sellars described the arts as “the language with which to speak of the unspeakable,” a way to forge “common ground” among diverse individuals. Sellars urged students to take arts to both the streets and corporate boardrooms as they left Harvard.

Sellars’ words resonated deeply with Myrvaagnes.

“He talked about doing theater in ways I’d never thought about before, doing King Lear with friends in regular clothing to mark the beginning of the Reagan Administration, with Brother Blue as King Lear,” Myrvaagnes says.

Sellars’ speech—at Harvard’s annual Arts First celebration—inspired Myrvaagnes, an English concentrator, to embark on a mission to bring the arts to the streets.

Fresh out of college, Myrvaagnes set out to create “The Out-Cast Project,” a dramatic troupe of homeless individuals who would learn and employ theater techniques to communicate their stories, he says.

The Out-Cast Project was based both on Sellars’ philosophy of art as an instrument of democracy, and the work of the Los Angeles Poverty Department, a theater that featured monologues by homeless people.

In the mission statement for the Project, Myrvaagnes wrote, “Our mission is to show the human experience of homelessness through theater to a range of audiences, and to compel the public to see that homeless people are human.”

Growing Curiosity

Myrvaagnes’s extracurricular activities at Harvard include helping to found the Quincy House Theater Group and volunteering in soup kitchens. These activities laid the groundwork for a life that would combine a love for drama and his concern for the homeless.

He says he had his first “aha” moment while volunteering at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter.

Hearing the story of a man who worked two jobs but could not afford to pay rent, Myrvaagnes says he became convinced that homeless people needed a new forum to express themselves.

“People facing homelessness need a safe space in which they can practice skillfully governing their bodies and voices and eyes without the present threat of a loss of wealth or well-being,” Myrvaagnes writes in the online mission statement for the Out-Cast Project.

He says he hoped that a theater of the homeless would empower performers and forge a connection between the homeless individuals and their audiences.

“Theater compels an audience to look at homeless people, something people in all cities spend their time avoiding,” the mission statement says.