Love Philly? So do we. Let’s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today.
Even the cheapest spots for most FIFA World Cup games in Philly run close to $500 a seat. But for $36, you can get a ticket for “Same Team,” an Inis Nua Theatre Co. production about a very different kind of soccer team – five struggling women who team up to compete in the Homeless World Cup.
Founded in 1999, the Homeless World Cup invites teams of people experiencing homelessness from around the world to represent their countries in street-style soccer.
It’s their stories that form the heart of the play.
“People who are homeless or have addiction issues are almost invisible in our society,” said “Same Team” co-playwright Robbie Gordon. “They go from feeling invisible to representing their countries. That’s why it’s so impactful.”
Inis Nua produces contemporary plays from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. The team in “Same Team” is Scottish, as are the playwrights, Jack Nurse and Gordon, who have written a play based on stories they learned visiting the Change Centre in Dundee, Scotland’s fourth largest city.
Yes, the play is based on amalgamations of specific stories they heard at the Centre, a place for fun and football (as soccer is known elsewhere) where people who are struggling in many different ways can find friendship and support, along with a good game.
“By being here, it feels universal,” said Nurse. “That’s really special.”
The two men are in Philly for a few weeks during the run of the show (through June 14) before traveling to Boston to see Scotland compete in a FIFA World Cup match.
Each participating country in the Homeless World Cup organization decides who is eligible based on how each country defines homelessness. In Scotland, for example, people are considered homeless if their living situations are volatile, even if they have a place to sleep under a roof.
Gordon said people who are homeless in Scotland seem to have more community support. Here, “it seems quite solitary,” he said.
Dundee’s Change Centre is part of an organization called Street Soccer with locations in Scotland and England. There’s an American organization, Street Soccer USA, with a branch in Philadelphia. Inis Nua has invited Philly’s Street Soccer crew to attend performances for free.
Gordon and Nurse met in college and began writing together, looking for groups of underrepresented people, getting to know them, and then devising plays from what they had learned. Writing as Wonder Fools, they’ve built plays from the experiences of Scottish veterans of the Spanish Civil War and older people with dementia.
“Same Team” got its start when the two of them stumbled across a street soccer tournament in George Square, a central hub in Glasgow. “It was really different,” said Gordon. For example, the goalie had no legs. “He’d fling himself around” to block the ball.
Intrigued, they learned more. The street soccer they saw was different, designed to be played on smaller pitches, always in a central spot, with just five people on a team, including the goalie.
They learned about Dundee’s Change Centre and soon were traveling there weekly – the best part of the week, the two agreed. To gain access, they had to prove themselves to one of its leaders, Sarah Rhind, who had suffered from addiction herself.
“It was the hardest job interview,” Nurse said. “She was quite combative and quite aggressive because she wanted to make sure she could trust us” with the stories they would hear.
“That was a massive green flag for us,” he said. They were reassured that the staff at the Change Centre was protective of the vulnerable people they served.
As it turned out, Rhind became a friend, an ally, and a safeguard, keeping them from straying into stereotypes or insensitivities.
After 18 months of weekly visits to the center, they wrote a brief synopsis of the play they wanted to produce in connection. Their nerves were on edge as they presented it to the Change Centre folks. Next was a reading with real actors. “It was one of the most magical theater experiences,” said Gordon, “with laughs and tears in all the right places.”
Each writer has a favorite character among the five teammates. Gordon’s is Noor, “a person of color in a community that is white.” She’s young, a teenager, and because of a twist of fate, she and her young brother need to provide for their grandparents in an unstable housing situation.
“They are out on a limb,” he said. “The weight of the world comes upon her.”
Nurse likes “B,” newly released from prison and trying to adjust as she reintegrates back into society. “She is my favorite character because she has all the best lines,” Nurse said. Many of them are a little off, “which leads to a lot of comedy.”
Both playwrights love the game, particularly when they can play street style. Nurse follows AFC Bournemouth, as his father did. “They just qualified for the Europe Cup,” he said. “It’s a good time to be a fan after 30 years of hurt.”
Gordon still savors the decade-old triumph of his team, the Hibernians, which won the Scottish Cup in 2016. Capturing the cup was a triumph for the Hibs, marking the end of a 114-year drought.
Philly’s footballers – the Philadelphia Union – are on pause during the World Cup games. They last played on May 24 in Miami, losing 6-4 to Inter Miami, the team that includes soccer star Lionel Messi, widely regarded as one of the best players in history. The FIFA games here start with with Cote d’Ivoire vs. Ecuador on June 14, the day the Inis Nua production closes.
“Same Team,” through June 14, Inis Nua Theatre Co., The Theaters at The Drake, 302 S. Hicks St., Phila. 215-454-9776.
