First he got the park clean, then his brother; New theater explores how Chris Harris played through the hazards

Five years after opening a golf course in the Ivanhoe neighborhood to help revitalize his community from within, Chris Harris is taking a swing at the east side’s theater desert.

Harris — the owner and operator of Harris Park Midtown Sports and Activity Center and lifelong neighborhood resident — has now built an indoor theater in the park, overlooking the golf course he added in 2018.

Harris Park

When he started talking to people about the project, he noted, they were saying the exact same thing about theater in Black neighborhoods as they were about golf.

“We just need to take care of our own,” he explained. “If you go to the golf course at home, you’ve got home court advantage. If you go to the theater and plays at home, you get home court advantage. Then when you go somewhere else, you’re comfortable because you grew up with it. So my goal is to have the next generation be comfortable with doing plays at home at their own theater.”

Click here to read more about the creation of Harris Park.

Victoria Barbee, who has been involved in the Kansas City theater scene for more than 20 years, agrees.

“You almost have to create your own seat at the table, per se,” said Barbee, who is the co-founder of Drama Time KC, a children’s theater company for kids of color started in 2016. “We, as women and people of color, are still striving to get our voices at the table on the production side, as well as on stage telling our stories. So this is a win-win situation for us to have someone like Chris Harris and his ownership of the park.”

The theater’s first play — “My Brother is My Security Blanket” — features Harris’ personal story, including the creation of Harris Park. Its debut run is set for May 11-13.

Click here to purchase tickets for “My Brother is My Security Blanket.”

“Harris Park is the who’s who and will be the who’s who in the community — as far as making a difference for us — all the way around,” added Barbee, the director of the play, who also planted the seed for building the theater.

Check out the play’s cast below, then keep reading.

Bringing it home

Although the golf course is just five years old, Harris started developing it in the late 1990s with a basketball court and a playground. Throughout his journey creating the space, he’s written down life changing moments along the way — documentation that provides a framework for “My Brother is My Security Blanket.”

The play centers on Harris’ relationship with his older brother during the early stages of cleaning up the neighborhood for the park, he said.

“Here we are with my brother running a drug house, right here on the block,” Harris recalled. “And I’m in the middle of the block doing community work.”

Despite this, Harris noted, he felt more secure with his brother around, especially when it came to self-policing the park.

“If I had to go handle a problem, my brother was still my brother,” he explained. “He still would help me and I felt safe while he was here. Even though he was part of the problem, he still was my big brother and he still had my back regardless.”

About 15 years ago, however, his brother had to serve time on drug-related charges, Harris said. And the very same day that his brother was taken away, Harris had to handle a problem on the basketball court without his big brother’s help.

“I looked up and he was not there,” he continued. “So I felt instantly like — you know in Charlie Brown? — Linus with his blanket. That was me. I felt invincible when my big brother was here.”

Even with the heartbreak of separation from his brother, Harris said, it was the best thing that could have happened.

“He got clean,” he noted. “And now he’s back every day helping me take care of the park and doing the things that we’re supposed to do.”

Harris Park

Through the play, Harris is hoping his family’s story is an inspiration to others.

“It just makes me want to bring it to reality for everyone that’s going through some of the same things that our family members went through,” he shared. “Through the ups and downs about it and the trials and tribulations about it to bring home and say ‘Hey, if we stick together, we still can make it and it can lead to a success story. It might not go as planned, but you just keep working and it might turn out right.”

Watching the first few rehearsals of the play, he said, brought it all back for him and his brother.

“I was laughing, I was crying, and it had me all over the place,” he added.

Victoria Barbee

View from the porch

About four years ago after she started renting a house in the Ivanhoe neighborhood, Barbee approached Harris with the idea for a theater in the park.

She’d met Harris because he kept mowing her lawn without her asking and without explanation; Barbee didn’t know it was a favor to Harris’ brother, who owns the property. Through those interactions and other observations, she saw the good work Harris was doing in the community.

“That was my first impression of him — a man that owned this piece of property, but he was willing to mow this old woman’s yard for free,” she said. “Like you don’t even know who I am. So in the meantime, I just started watching all the things he was doing from my porch and from my window and I was like, ‘He’s doing a lot of positive things over here.’”

So she decided to ask him if he’d ever thought about setting up an area for an outdoor theater.

Stage setup for “My Brother is My Security Blanket” at Harris Park’s new theater; photo courtesy of Chris Harris

“He’s like, ‘Let me build a building and I’ll get back to you,” she continued. “Two and a half years later, he calls and goes, ‘I’m ready,’ and so I got to watch this building come to fruition through my kitchen window. And I walk inside of it and it’s amazing.” 

“I’m about to start crying thinking about it,” she added, “because he’s a man with a vision. He knows what he needs to do.”

Once the theater was ready, Harris reached out about his idea for the play. Barbee then brought his story to life, finding a writer — Gary Enrique Bradley- Lopez, who she calls a gifted local playwright — and casting local actors — Renauld Shelton, Jerron O’Neal, Briana Van Deusen, and Jabrelle Jeneé.

“The whole thing is like 60-60,” noted Barbee, who is also playing Harris’ mom in the play. “We did everything in 60 days and the play is 60 minutes. So it’s phenomenal how it all came together.”

Planting the seed

Chris Harris, Harris Park

Investing more than 30 years into revitalizing his neighborhood, Harris shared, he’s starting to see the change. It’s a feeling in the air, he said.

Harris Park — which hosted a celebrity golf tournament on NFL Draft weekend with former Chiefs Dante Hall and Marcus Spears — is booked for more than 20 events and field trips this spring. New houses are being built that overlook the golf course. And many of the local hospitals are bringing doctors and nurses into the neighborhood for walking groups and to connect with the community.

“Right now we’re just planting the seed,” he explained. “We’re just continuing to open the door, continuing to clean up our neighborhood, changing the mindsets, continuing to make this thing happen, and having fun with the opportunity.”