San Francisco Mime Troupe
San Francisco Mime Troupe May News 
In This Issue

The Youth Theater Project 20th Anniversary Festival Weekend was a huge success! We are so proud of our teen artists who showcased their original one act plays this past weekend. Audiences witnessed honest and thoughtful depictions of topics that are relevant to young people today.

As part of the festivities, we hosted a 20th anniversary Gala Event in our studio space. It was a beautiful and sentimental night filled with old friends (some of whom we haven't seen in a long while), live music, a youth DJ, an art exhibit and even a surprise marriage proposal!

To learn more about this program have a listen to an interview on KALW radio!

Look for more YTP events & programming this fall and don't miss this week's Young California Writers' Project!  Read on below!
Young California Writers' Project

The Young California Writers' Project (YCWP) has provided high school students with the opportunity to work with local playwrights in the development of their own short plays. Peers identify the top nine scripts from among the final bunch, and these are ultimately brought to life by professional actors and directors in public staged readings at a local theatre.

Date: Wednesday, May 4  
Time: 6.30pm 
Where: Troupe Studio, 855 Treat Ave, SF ( tricky street parking
Tickets: FREE (suggested donation welcome) come early as space is limited 
SF Mime Troupe Fundraiser
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit
 
Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour declined to serve in his country's armed forces, in return the Iranian government denied Mr. Soleimanpour's request for a passport. Unable to leave Iran, he has instead sent a script to SFIAF (SF International Arts Festival) to have other people read it for him.

SFIAF has invited collective member Rotimi Agbabiaka to perform White Rabbit, Red Rabbit for one nig ht only! Before the performance, join some collective Troupe members for a reception benefiting the Mime Troupe! The cost of the reception is included in the $35 VIP ticket price! Read on!
 
Date: Friday, May 20 
Time: 8.00pm 
Tickets: $15 and $35 at www.sfiaf.org 

We encourage Troupe supporters to purchase the $35 tickets but a portion of ALL ticket sales will go towards the Troupe!

FMC Box Office: 415.345.7575 
Information: 415.399.9554
SFMT Summer Show - "Schooled"

Education. It's like the weather: everyone has an opinion but nobody does anything about it. That's how Livina Jones feels about her son Tom's new school, Eleanor Roosevelt High. With it's old textbooks, crumbling classrooms, and racist treatment of kids just like hers Livina believes Roosevelt is exactly the sort of school that can benefit from a little free-market common sense. The nanny-state government has failed to see students as individuals, and failed to give them the real-world skills they'll need to get ahead. So who says it isn't time for some big money, for-profit schooling?
 
Edith Orocuru, for one. She's the long serving history/civics/American government/basketball coach at Eleanor Roosevelt, and she's willing to fight for her version of education as long as her reconstructed hips will allow. But is she fighting for a system that can be fixed, or is she just too blind by her past to see how times have left her and her school behind? And when an efficiency expert, Ms. Babbit, is assigned to improve her class is it a sign that Edith is behind the times, or a sign of something more sinister? And with privatization on the line, and a Wall Street heavy hitter lined up to fold the entire district into his conglomerate, suddenly the next School Board election is more about a hidden agenda than the open curriculum. And when did the hall monitors start wearing brown shirts and arm bands?

Want to hear a little more? Please join us for our first public reading of the script in it's early stage of creation!

Date: Wednesday, May 18
Time: 7.00pm (Doors open at 6.30p)
Where: 855 Treat Ave, SF ( Tricky street parking)
Tickets:
FREE (Donations welcome)
Reservations: Please call or email us if you plan to attend! 415-285-1717 * info@sfmt.org 

Learn more about the following shows by visiting our website!

Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives 80th Annual Cel
ebration - Velina Brown

Sojourners & runboyrun
- Rotimi Agbabiaka

The Winter's Tale -
Lizzie Calogero

California Shakespeare Theatre - Tristan Cunningham

Sammy Peters: Then & Now
- Sammy Peters

The Walking Dead & Nat Turner
- Colman Domingo

1984 - Michael Gene Sullivan

The King and I
- Brian Rivera

Robert Wood Johnson Grant 

Next week the first of our three teaching teams is hitting the road beginning an exciting project funded by the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The foundation's primary focus is health on both the individual and community levels. They've asked us to bring our collaborative playmaking workshops to rural disenfranchised communities. Health is the burning issue that will inform and generate more specific discussions about subjects which will mold the one act plays that will be performed in each respective community. Velina Brown and Mario Gonzales will be the first team out- heading to Golden Valley High School in Merced. Followed by Ed Holmes and Bob Ernst who will be working with the inmates of Salinas Valley (formerly Soledad ) Prison. Finally Wilma Bonet and Hugo E Carbajal will be facilitating the workshops at the Migrant workers Family Community Center near Watsonville. This project is an exciting opportunity for us and we will be sharing updates on it as we proceed.