An Introduction

What Will Be in the Fields Tomorrow? is an informal script intended for public group reading that brings people together in a common experience. Fields is conversations among farmers that translate the power of their voices and experiences. Fields is entertaining and educational, and at its best, this group reading experience can provide a starting point for continuing the conversation through facilitated dialogue and community programs.

Fields is a series of vignettes structured as inter-related conversations and statements among 10 – 13 individuals. The script can be used as a whole or excerpted to focus on issues or address time. The full length script is approximately 60 minutes; an abridged version is 38 minutes.

A group reading can be done around a large table with participants reading to one-another with no practice, or, with scripts-in-hand, presented from a stage to an audience with few props and limited technical support.

These resources will help you use the script and do readers’ theatre with your constituency and in your community.

“Changing my farming techniques from a conventional operation to an organic operation significantly improved my profitability and bottom line . . . One thing we eliminated from our economic necessity is an operating note. We’d borrow a large amount of money from the bank in the spring and hope to pay it off in the fall when we sold our crops. We don’t have to do that now. I think that pretty well speaks for itself.”

Bob Quinn, Big Sandy, Montana – Chouteau County from People Sustaining the Land by Cynthia Vagnetti, 2002.