Story and photos by JASON McLEAN

As our chartered bus pulled up to the Lacolle border crossing, bound for New York City to protest George Bush and the Republican National Convention, I started to wonder if we were going to get through at all.

After hearing the reason for our visit, the U.S. border guard decided to editorialize: "Why on Earth would you want to protest? George Bush is the greatest president since Ronald Reagan and George Washington." And then promptly checked everyone's ID and ushered us through.

We waved to the driver, who was waiting to bring anyone kicked off the bus back to Montreal (it's a common tactic to kick a few people off the bus in hopes that the others will not want to leave their friends stranded and head back) and were on our way.

We arrived in New York shortly after 7:30 a.m. Sunday and went for breakfast to fuel up for a full day of protest. The restaurant soon filled up with NYPD officers, who, apparently, were also fuelling up for a full day of protest.

As a theatre activist, I was on the lookout for all types of theatrical expression against the RNC. And, believe me, I found it.

Off-Broadway performances

By 10:30 a.m., all sorts of people were milling around the Chelsea district, including many ordinary folks dressed as Uncle Sam, the Statue of Liberty and Dubya himself.

Shortly before the march started (officially) at noon, we passed by the procession of 1,000 Coffins setting up. Cardboard coffins were draped with American flags to symbolize fallen U.S. soldiers and others in black to symbolize soldiers of other nations (none, I might add, to symbolize the fallen Iraqi citizens, but I digress). As this was a sombre procession, and we wanted to make noise, we decided to get onto another "feeder" street and wait.

Over two hours later, we had made it about two blocks into the march, which, despite the scorching heat, was a great thing as it meant there must have been a lot of people. Later estimates said there were 200,000 to 500,000 people, or "tens of thousands" in CNN-speak (I don't want to know how many people FOX said there were).

Alexis Sottile, who had helped organize the Theaters Against War portion of the protest (and invited us down), was thrilled with the success of the march. She commented that after a march of this magnitude "it would be an act of wilful ignorance… for GOP leaders to underestimate the extremely broad, diverse opposition to its policies."

As the march started to get rolling, we passed all sorts of performance-protest, including marching bands and the Radical Cheerleaders, performing with some drummers and the Pink Brigade. We caught up with members of Artists Against War, marching with the Toronto Stop The War Coalition, who were performing the third of their Bush Fire shows later that evening (the second concert was a benefit for our bus).

Apparently, one of their buses was held up at the border for eight hours, the other for five, as border guards grilled the passengers. Quite a few people from the group didn't get through at all.

Billionaire-baiting

Shortly after meeting the Toronto contingent, George Mougias of the Optative Theatrical Laboratories and I skipped out of the main march to catch the Billionaires for Bush buying Broadway. Founded by Phil T. Rich (otherwise known as Andrew Boyd) and originally called the Billionaires for Bush or Gore, this sarcastic street-theatre troupe dresses up in tuxes and gowns and protests the protesters, with slogans like "Four more wars! Four more wars!" "Free the Enron Seven!" and "Cheney is innocent!" Fresh off their croquet match in Central Park, the Billionaires made their way to Times Square and drew quite a crowd, which was confused at first but then generally supported them.

They never got to buy Broadway because, about a block and a half away, riot cops were securing the theatres that RNC delegates would be attending that evening and had already started arresting protesters (around 400 were arrested in total). More arrests would happen later that evening in Central Park outside of the Boat House Restaurant where delegates were eating.

Returning to Montreal, and thinking of the amazing day I had just had, I can only hope that I never have to do it again. That, though, is up to the Americans.