Friday, July 22, 2016

Wanda's Picks Friday, July 22, 2016

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!

1. We speak to Andrew P. Saito and Amy Muller about the 39th Annual Bay Area Playwright's Festival closing this weekend, 7/22-24 at Custom Made Theatre in SF. 
Bios:
Amy Mueller (Artistic Director) is an award-winning director. Since taking the helm of Playwrights Foundation ten years ago she has transformed the scope of the organization into a year-round center for new plays and playwrights. Recent credits include: ...and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi by Marcus Gardley, One Big Lie by Liz Duffy Adams (dramaturg), Mr. Fujiyama's Electric Beach by Kevin Oakes (dramaturg), and co-creator of The Mandala Olive Project at the Exit Theatre. Director: Voices Under Water by Abi Basch, Between The Eyesby Naomi Wallace and No Good Deed by Mollena Williams. She has directed at Cutting Ball Theater, Berkeley Rep, San Diego Rep, A.C.T. Seattle and Arizona Theatre Company. She is the mother of two beautiful children.


Andrew P. Saito's plays include La Lechera, El Rio, finalist for the Princess Grace Award, Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night, featured at Cutting Ball Theater's 2011 Risk Is This...Festival, and The Patron Saint of Monsters, selected for a 2012 Core Apprentice developmental reading at the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis. Other presenters include the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Brava! for Women in the Arts, Kearny Street Workshop, Asian American Theatre Company, La Pena Cultural Center, and Mixed Phoenix Theatre Company in New York. He has been twice commissioned by Handful Players, and has taught playwriting in rural Mayan villages in Guatemala, and with WritersCorps, Performing Arts Workshop, legendary Peruvian theatre collective Yuyachkani, and Montalvo Arts Center as a Teaching Artist Fellow. A two-time alternate for a Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing, as well finalist for as a Jerome Playwriting Fellowship, Andrew is a proud founding member of Cut the Rhino, a 5-member theatre collective formed by the 2011 graduating class of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop.

From the Archives:

2. Tania Santiago, dir. Arguas (Feb. 2014)

3. Tarell Alvin Craney re: Head Passes@ BRT (2015)

Music: Zion Trinity; Nova Lima

Visit: 
http://tobtr.com/s/9088397

Friday, July 01, 2016

Wanda's Picks Friday, July 1

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay! 

1. From the archives: "Grateful" -- Victoria Theodore (4/26/2013)

2. Velina Brown joins us to talk about "Schooled," SF Mime Troupe's 2016 Summer Season opening July 2-3, 1:30 p.m. in Berkeley at Cedar Rose Park and 7/4 Dolores Park in San Francisco.

Velina Brown (Lavinia Jones, mother),
Rotimi Agbabiaka
 (Thomas Jones, son)
Bio:

Velina Brown (Actor, SFMT Collective) has been a principal performer for the Mime Troupe in such shows as City for Sale, Eating It, 1600 Transylvania Avenue, Mr. Smith Goes to Obscuristan, and Showdown at Crawford Gulch to name a few. She was the Devil in Deal With the Devil, Veronique in Veronique of the Mounties, she's played Condoleeza Rice three times, and was both an actor and Contributing Lyricist on GodFellas and Making a Killing. Velina's most recent shows with the Troupe include Ripple Effect, For The Greater Good: Or the Last Election, Red State, Too Big to Fail, and Posibilidad: Or Death of the Worker for which she won Best Principal Actress by the Bay Area Critics Circle. In 2012 she was honored as one of TBA's "35 Faces", artists who've made significant contributions to the Bay Area theater community.

Mother and Son with Keiko Shimosato-Carreiro (Ethel Orocuru)




Music: Zion Trinity's Elegba Opening Prayer; Victoria Theodore's "Grateful," Rene Marie's Star Spangled Banner/Lift Every Voice 


http://www.michaelgenesullivan.com/