BND 07: The Chartwells Tour - What Happened

This Buy Nothing Day, Optative Theatrical Laboratories and Uberculture Concordia brought a bit of BND cheer to patrons at McGill and Concordia Chartwells-run cafeterias, many of whom probably there because they were on a forced meal plan or because there wasn't any other choice on campus (Chartwells likes to get rid of the competition).

We encourage you to play our scene, a variation of it, or any other one, for that matter, in a Chartwells near you, and let us know about how your performance went by contacting bnd@optative.net

The Scene

Our scene took the idea of the forced meal plan and brought it to it's absurd conclusion.  After our invisible players got the buzz going about some of the issues  surrounding Chartwells, two of them almost got into a fight, just a ChartWater Security agent entered, followed by Sergeant Grubbs and Mr. Wells, CEO of Chartwells/Compass Group Canada.

(l-r) Sergeant Grubbs, Mr. Wells and a ChartWater Security agent

They quickly quell the problem and Mr. Wells informs the crowd that there are some new rules.  As ChartWater Security starts handing out the New Meal Plan, Sergeant Grubbs informs the patrons that Chartwells was now telling them what to eat and when to eat it, and if they didn't like it, tough, because Chartwells has annexed the competition, like the Architecture Café at McGill and was going to annex other student-run places like the People's Potato at Concordia and school bake sales.

At this point, some patrons objected to the new policy and were removed from the scene by ChartWater Security as Sergeant Grubbs asked their friends if they were "with us or against us."  The friends were Chartwells supporters, so Sergeant Grubbs led them in the Chartwells chant and they all marched out chanting.

A Chartwells patron objects to the new policy

The Tour

We performed at McGill University at the Chartwells in the Redpath Library.  The large audience was surprised at first, but then got into the scene and loudly applauded as the players left.

We moved on to Concordia University's Sir George Williams downtown campus and played at two Chartwells locations, first in the cafeteria on the 7th floor of the Hall Building and then across the street in the Library Building.

Here's the video of our McGill performance...

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(CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT WHY WE CHOSE CHARTWELLS)