SYNOPSIS

MERCY STREET follows a housing protest in Jersey City over the course of a single night, as the tenants of 121 Murphy Street huddle together in the common room of their building, determined to stay in the home that they all own a piece of. Through music and memory, they each tell their part of the story, and they argue over the difficult choice they are faced with: to continue the protest in spite of long odds, or to take a buyout offer from the petty criminal-turned-real estate developer Ron Park, who has been trying to divide them against one another for months. The non-linear narrative unfolds through the perspectives of several different characters; each person’s narrative is presented as a self-contained “Side,” like one side of an old L.P.

MERCY STREET wrestles with a question that is as old as society itself: are we better off living as individuals without the constraints of other people, or are we stronger when we come together as a community?



After the concert, the Mercy Street creative team will be further developing the project in various stages.