James Long

Do You Mind If I Sit Here? James Long

A powerful new play by the author of Jabber and The In-Between, with a text exploring social issues, interclass dialogue, and the possibility of communal improvement




Award-winning playwright Marcus Youssef takes his readers to the future with his riveting new play Do You Mind If I Sit Here? Thirty years from now, three social planners visit Vancouver's Russian Hall, long abandoned due to earthquakes and flooding, with a seemingly straightforward task: repurpose the hall for common use. But the trio soon discover the project won't be as easy as they'd thought. An eccentric squatter has made the damaged hall his home, and he not only possesses a trove of Soviet industrial films on 16-mm stock but also refuses to leave. Do You Mind If I Sit Here? is a witty theatrical allegory about the possibilities of radical transformation, in which Youssef dares us to imagine a future borne from our most important beliefs, fears, and hope.