The Bozeman Community Players opened their latest production Thursday night in the City Commission chambers on Rouse Avenue. “Zoning Variance: A Drama in Three Acts” runs through Saturday with a pay-what-you-can sliding scale that tops out at the median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment.

Director Mara Lindstrom said the script was transcribed from actual planning board meetings between 2019 and 2024. “We didn’t write a word of it,” she said. “The dialogue is verbatim. The pauses are verbatim. The part where someone says ‘point of order’ and nobody knows what it means — that’s three minutes of the second act.”

Audience member Glen Haskins, who drives a 2003 Subaru with a ski rack and a “Keep Bozeman Weird” sticker, attended opening night. “It felt sacred,” he said. “Like watching the akashic records of Main Street play out in real time. Also the woman behind me kept whispering ’that’s the guy who denied my fence permit.’”

The set design uses the commission’s actual dais, complete with the same microphones that pick up the hum of the building’s original radiator system. Cast members wear business casual sourced entirely from the Gallatin Valley Food Bank’s career closet. Intermission features kombucha from a local brewery served in compostable cups that cost more than the theater’s annual insurance premium.

Councilwoman Tara Vosper attended Friday’s performance and stayed for the talkback. “It’s important the arts engage with civic process,” she said. “Though I should note the character based on me gets a solo about parking minimums that lasts four minutes. I don’t talk that much.”

The final scene projects a map of the Gallatin Valley onto the chamber wall. Each development approval lights up in sequence until the map glows like a circuit board. The house lights come up slowly. No one claps right away.

The box office accepts venmo, cash, and locally foraged mushrooms.