Commissioners discussed on July 15 a proposed partnership with a local theater practitioner, Ami, to host facilitated, theater-based dialogues on polarizing topics. Aaron, HRC member, outlined the concept: the proposal would bring Ami’s “interview game” — a theatrical conversation format — to Boulder for public performances followed by facilitated dialogue. “He’s got his crew of, like, 7 people, and he says, like, at a minimum, they could probably, like, pull it together for, like, a thousand dollars or something a show,” Aaron said.

Commissioners described the event as a combination of stage performance and a facilitated conversation designed to invite a broad public audience, including people with strongly pro-Israel and pro-Palestine views, to attend as observers and participants. Aaron said the plan could begin with Israel–Palestine and expand to other topics such as immigration. “The whole thing is based around like addressing the polarization and like not trying to say it’s this or it’s this, but like looking at how do we dialogue about it,” Aaron said.

Staff flagged budget and intellectual-property issues. Christian, the staff member supporting the commission, said the HRC’s miscellaneous purchase-services line currently shows about $1,000 for the calendar year and that the platform lists the line as overspent; he offered to check the accounts. “We may be able to move something around... I’ll reach out to the budget analyst that I work with to see what might be possible,” Christian said. Christian also relayed a prior concern from a trainer, Doctor Ho, about compensating Ami for use of the interview game: “Doctor Ho’s biggest, like concern was just making sure that Ami, as the sort of like owner of the intellectual property of the interview game, gets compensated for his intellectual property,” Christian said.

Commissioners discussed venue, outreach and safety. Aaron proposed the Canyon Theatre as a likely venue and said the theater could host multiple showings over a week. Commissioners emphasized the need for a transparent plan to hold strong emotions in the space, to use interpreters, and to do broad community outreach rather than invite only selected stakeholders. Rosabella (interpreter) asked speakers to slow their pace to support interpretation.

Next steps recorded in the meeting: Christian said he would check the HRC budget line and, if necessary, speak with his budget analyst about options to reallocate unspent funds; Aaron said he would follow up with Ami to confirm logistics and availability. Christian also said he would investigate reserving the Canyon Theatre in case the commission chooses that venue.

No formal vote or expenditure was recorded in the transcript. Commissioners agreed to continue planning while staff confirm budget availability and logistics. If funded, commissioners discussed running multiple events to build momentum and to pair the theatrical format with other difficult-dialogues training already under discussion with external trainers.