Meet Me at the Court (working title) tells the untold story of the North Providence Summer Basketball League at Evans Field, which grew from pick-up games among a small group of friends in the early ‘60s to one of the best places for street ball in the country, during its thirty-year run. The Herbert L. Swenson Jr. and Charles Ruggerio courts were where future politicians, coaches, local legends, and over two dozen NBA Draft lottery picks all played. As told through the memories of the men who started the league at the height of the civil rights movement, when they were just young kids trying to play basketball after dark, it becomes a story not just of hoops action, but of race and class, small town politics, and of trying to capture a hidden history before it’s lost to time.
The film is co-written by John Taraborelli and Evan Villari, who is also producing and directing. The executive producers of the film are representatives from Providence Inner City Arts (PICA) whose artistic director is legendary storyteller Len Cabral – who also serves as one of the primary characters and the narrator of the film.
