Afro Solo’s
BLACK VOICE SERIES

August 21 - 24, 2008
Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8pm
Sunday at 3pm


In collaboration with The Marsh, AfroSolo presents its seminal Black Voices. Idris Ackamoor, Angela Dean-Baham, and Laura Elaine Ellis will perform original solo stage works inspired by the theme of resilience.

Idris Ackamoor - Music for One Hand Clapping. Directed by Rhodessa Jones, this piece combines elements of music, dance, theater, and video. It presents stories of artists, including Django Reinhardt, Peg Leg Bates, and Paul Wittgenstein, who overcame physical disabilities to garner worldwide acclaim for their art.

Angela Dean-Baham - Unsung Diva: The Life and Times of Sissieretta Jones, aka Black Patti. Directed by Rhodessa Jones, the piece recalls the story of acclaimed Metropolitan Opera soprano Adelina Patti, one of Americas first African American international opera stars.

Laura Elaine Ellis- i that is we – a world premiere original dance performance inspired by Nina Simones song Four Women.  The work was created  in collaboration with poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph, composer Ajayi Lumumba, and photographer Kimara Dixon.

Marvin C. White Untitled. Mr. White, author of the Lambda Literary Award-nominated collections of poetry “last rights” and “nothin ugly fly,” is a poet, performer, playwright, visual artist as well as a community arts organizer.

Liebe Wetzel's
Lunatique Fantastique Presents
CHICKEN STOCK

September 6 thru 14, 2008
Saturday and Sunday at 1pm
Marsh Main Stage

"Found puppet genius." -SF Chronicle

"A stunning tribute to creativity." -Contra Costa Times

"A remarkably clever and moving form of visual poetry." -San Francisco Bay Guardian

"Her work strikes an instant chord with audience members." -SF Weekly

Chicken Stock is the uncanny story of avian influenza as seen through the eyes of domesticated birds and migratory water fowl. Using newspaper, plastic bags, and plastic forks, the animators of Lunatique Fantastique bring the Henpeck and Mallard family to amazing life as they encounter the deadly flu.

Ann Randolph’s
SQUEEZE BOX

IT'S BACK Starting September 13!

Marsh Main Stage
Saturday at 5pm
Sunday at 7pm
(No Show on Sundays September 21 & 28)


Ann Randolph, One Woman Wonder — SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com

She's a bit of a genius— Mel Brooks

“Hilarious and generally outrageous... a natural-born performer with a veteran's chops
... a quiet sense of the miraculous— Bay Guardian

"When I first saw [Squeeze Box], I was deeply moved. Ann Randolph's amazing work, both as a writer and fellow performer, touched my heart and my mind so profoundly that I felt it belonged on the New York stage." — Anne Bancroft

"She goes in and out of these characters. She's a bit of a genius. I've been around, and I haven't seen so much talent in one person since I married Anne Bancroft. I've got to say that these are two great Anns, and I am glad that they hooked up together." — Mel Brooks

"Rubber faced Randolph is wickedly hysterical." — Los Angeles Times

"Randolph allows us to see ourselves in and among people who seem utterly removed from our urban existence." — LA Weekly

With pathos and humor, Randolph skillfully weaves together stories about working in a women's homeless shelter and the pursuit of true love. Her painfully funny portraits of the shelter's residents, and hilarious account of her hiking trip with Harold the accordionist, man of her dreams, are beautifully drawn in this poignant tale about finding dignity and grace in unusual places.

A hilarious ride through the paradigm shift, from Newton’s rational, law-and-orderly universe to the free-wheeling  Universe 3.0.  A heady mixture of quantum physics, trenchant political commentary and the personal saga of Levine’ s experience with a freakish medical condition provides proof that her Five Easy Steps actually work. 

Emily Levine was both a successful stand-up comic, lauded by “Newsweek” as “one of the new queens of comedy” and the L.A. Times as “a mad professor genius comic,” and a television writer/producer, writing such shows as Designing Women and Love and War.  Bored with both careers, she re-invented herself as a comedian/philosopher and launched her one-woman show, “Five Easy Steps to Metaphysical Fitness.”