Podcast appearances and mentions of marin shakespeare

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Antipodes” by Annie Baker, performed by The Actors Reading Collective at the Marin Shakespeare Theatre through December 1, 2024. The post Review: “The Antipodes” at Marin Shakespeare Theatre appeared first on KPFA.

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! Melanin Magic Sessions Take 11: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion. 1. Marvin X, editor, and Michael Satchel, screenwriter, l join us to speak about his new work, "Tariq,(the Moor)" an historic story of the African General in Spain. https://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/2020/04/book-release-tarik-by-michael-satchell.html 2. Dameion Brown had his first ever public performance as the title role in Othello at Marin Shakespeare Company in 2016, achieving what has never been done before by a first-time actor: the honor of “Best Lead Actor” from the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Since then, he has appeared in The Seagull at Utopia Theatre Project, Waafrika and The Farm at TheatreFirst (winning another BATCC award), Dance of the Holy Ghost with Ubuntu, and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing last summer at Marin Shakespeare. He formerly taught parenting classes at the San Francisco Sheriff's Department for at-risk-youth, now he's a teaching artist and mentor at Alameda Juvenile Facility at O.H.Close and Chad facilities in Stockton.   

In this episode, you will meet Dameion Brown. At age 24, Dameion went to prison. He was expected to get out in 5-7 years. It took 23 years. Near the end of his time in prison, Dameion took a Shakespearian acting class that would set him on the path of becoming an actor. After leaving prison, Dameion would play the lead role in Marin Shakespeare's Othello and win several awards as a professional actor in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to working as an actor on stage and on screen, Dameion's mission is to “drain prisons of the lifeblood that feeds them.” A leader in the community, Dameion helps children at two juvenile prison facilities in Stockton California. In this episode you will hear Dameion's story and the lessons he's learned along the way: from his arrival at San Quentin prison to the present where he is a professional actor, storyteller, teacher and mentor who serves others.In this Episode, You Will LearnDameion's lesson from his first day at San Quentin PrisonHow survival depends upon paying attention and being present in prisonPrison group dynamicsHow Dameion was reluctant to commit to the Shakespeare class in prison, but would end up seeing it throughWhat it's like to learn to act in Shakespeare plays in prisonHow Dameion went from prisoner to being a professional actorHow Dameion relates to the character OthelloDameion's favorite play by ShakespeareDameion's philosophy of loving fully with an open heartDameion's mission to “drain prisons of the lifeblood that feeds them” and how he works with children in juvenile prisons in Stockton CaliforniaLinks and ResourcesKALW local public radio interview - insights on Prison Shakespeare Programs from Dameion BrownArtist in Residence 2019 Dameion BrownCommon Wealth Club Speech - Dameion Brown - July 2019The Box by Sarah ShourdUbuntu TheaterOthelloMerchant of VeniceMidsummer Night's DreamStan RothNick ThurstonLisa Keating PhotographyN.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility (aka ‘Chad')Prison Population by Gender - 92.9% men and 7.1% womenThe Prison System Compared to the US Population - ...the United States now has more than 2 million people in prisons or jails--the equivalent of one in every 142 U.S. residents--and another four to five million people on probation or parole. A higher percentage of the population is involved in the criminal justice system in the USA than any other developed country.Support the show

Like an Elizabethan game of whack-a-mole, as soon as North Bay theatre companies knock out one outdoor summer Shakespeare production, another one seems to pop up. Marin Shakespeare brought us Pericles at Dominican University’s Forest Meadows amphitheater, the Raven did A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Healdsburg’s Seghesio Winery, and Shakespeare in the Cannery did Shakespeare in Love in the, well, Cannery. A few more weeks of summer means a few more weeks of North Bay Shakespeare al fresco. The Petaluma Shakespeare Company is presenting their Shakespeare by the River Festival with two shows – the bard’s All’s Well That Ends Well and an original production by Jacinta Gorringe entitled Speechless Shakespeare – through September 2. Marin’s Curtain Theatre is presenting Henry IV, Part 1 at the Old Mill Park in Mill Valley through September 9, and Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse closes out their season with The Comedy of Errors, one of Shakespeare’s earliest and mercifully shortest plays (merciful as it gets might cold in the Cannery after the sun goes down.) It’s the tale of two sets of twins - masters and servants - separated by shipwreck who years later come together in the city of Ephesus, thoroughly confusing wives, mistresses, merchants, and each other. Yes, the basic plot isn’t very original (Shakespeare “borrowed” it from a couple of even earlier plays) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining. Director Jared Sakren has gathered a group of quality actors who all seem to be having fun with their roles. William Brown and Ariel Zuckerman are the masters who share the moniker Antipholus while Jared Wright and Sam Coughlin each play a servant named Dromeo. They’ll find themselves dealing with a bewildered wife (Jessica Headington), her supportive sister (Isabella Sakren), a doctor (Eyan Dean) who diagnoses demonic possession and an Abbess (Jill Wagoner) who’s just this side of Misery’s Annie Wilkes before everything is sorted out in the end. Colorful Victorian-era costumes (that’s when it’s set) by Pamela Johnson add to the jovial tone of the show and there’s some excellent physical comedy by Wright and Coughlin as the put-upon servants. It’s a silly show done seriously (and occasionally a bit too intensely) but overall, it’s an amusing way to bring summer theatre to a close. The Shakespeare by the River Festival runs Thursday through Sunday through September 2 on the Foundry Wharf Green in Petaluma. Times & shows vary. Admission is free. For more information, go to petalumashakespeare.org ‘Henry IV, Part 1’ runs Saturdays and Sundays through September 9 at the Old Mill Amphitheatre in Mill Valley. All performances are at 2pm and admission is free. For more information, go to curtaintheatre.org 'The Comedy of Errors' runs Friday through Sunday through September 2 at the Cannery Ruins behind 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa. Performances are at 7pm For ticketing information, go to 6thstreetplayhouse.com

‘Tis the season for Shakespeare al fresco so pack a picnic, grab a blanket and check out these North Bay productions: Marin Shakespeare closes out its season under the stars with Pericles, a play whose authorship by Shakespeare has fostered many a debate. Plot points include incest, assassination, famine, a shipwreck, marriage, maternal death, familial separation, attempted murder, kidnapping, pirates, prostitution, and a seemingly dead person rising from a watery grave. Who knew Shakespeare wrote a zombie play? And this is a comedy. Director Lesley Currier and her design team have taken all these elements, dressed them up in modern garb, added a few topical references, and come up with the theatrical equivalent of a “B” movie. It’s entertaining and even moving at the end, but it evaporates quickly in the night air. Artist-in-residence Dameion Brown brings his commanding stage presence to the title role. Fine supporting work is done by Cathleen Ridley as the loving Queen Simonedes and the treacherous Dionyza; Eliza Boivin as Marina, Pericles’s daughter; Rod Gnapp and Richard Pallaziol in a variety of roles; and Diane Wasnak, who is very engaging as the puckish storyteller Gower. 'Pericles' runs Thursday–Sunday through August 5 at Forest Meadows Amphitheater at Dominican University in San Rafael. The showtimes vary and the venue opens one hour before curtain for picnicking. For more information, go to marinshakespeare.org Santa Rosa’s Shakespeare in the Cannery ceases to exist after this season’s production as the property is being “repurposed.” Co-founder/director David Lear decided to go out on a lighter note so they’re presenting Shakespeare in Love, the stage adaptation of 1998’s Best Picture Oscar winner. Poor Will Shakespeare (John Browning) has writer’s block and can’t seem to finish his latest opus, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter. A muse arrives in the person of Viola (Sydney McNulty), who disguises herself as ‘Thomas Kent’ so as to get around the ‘no women on stage’ rule. Shifty theatre producers, a loathsome Lord, a treacherous boy and a haughty queen all come into play before Romeo and Juliet sees the light of day. It’s a piffle but the cast has fun, with good comedic support from Alan Kaplan and Liz Jahren. Isiah Carter impresses in two roles and keep an eye out for Isabella, one of the moodiest, scene-stealing “bitch” characters I’ve seen on a North Bay Stage. 'Shakespeare in Love' runs Friday through Sunday through August 5 at the Cannery in Railroad Square in Santa Rosa. Show time is at 7pm with the gate opening at 5pm for picnicking. For more information, go to shakespeareinthecannery.com

1. Hackathon Weekend Event Chris Norwood and Stephen Van Heflin Sept. 3-4 in NorCA & SoCAL speak about the first annual live streaming 'We Are Code' Virtual RealityHackathon programming competition between youth teams in Compton, CA (SoCal) and Oakland, CA (NorCal).  Dhat Stone Academy and Bay Area Tutoring Association host: "We Are Code" VR Hackathon | NorCal vs. SoCal | 7-to-12th graders. Saturday & Sunday, Sept. 3-4, 2016 | 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. in NorCal at:  East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC), 8200 International Blvd., Oakland, CA 94621.  In SoCal at: NASA Columbia Memorial Space Center (CMSC),  12400 Columbia Way, Downey, CA 90242.  2. Wanda Ravernell joins us to talk about the the 3rd Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, a family friendly celebration of African American traditional food, music and art, Sat., Sept. 10, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m at Mosswood Park,Broadway and  Macarthur Boulevard in Oakland 3. Actor, Dameion Brown as Othello in Marin Shakespeare production through 9/25   

There’s an old Latin saying. "Aestivo Tempori est Shakespeare!" Roughly translated: There’s no better time to watch Shakespeare than in the summertime! I don’t know when summer became so connected to the Bad Bard of Avon, but there’s no denying that the moment the weather gets nice, along comes a troupe of iambic-pentameter talking actors to put on a little something by good old William S. This coming weekend, Railroad Square’s Shakespeare in the Cannery will open "Twelfth Night," and next month will bring productions of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" to Guerneville, and "The Taming of the Shrew" to Mill Valley. Since they are amongst Shakespeare’s better-known shows, there’s a pretty good chance what you see and hear with these productions will be more-or-less what Shakespeare wrote, because there’s an unwritten rule about Shakespeare: If you’re going to mess around with the Bard, you will get less blowback if you pick a play that nobody knows. Which brings us to William Shakespeare’s "Cymbeline," landing with a gleeful-giddy splash last weekend in San Rafael’s Forest Meadows Amphitheatre at Dominican University. "Cymbeline," one of Shakespeare’s final works as a playwright, is rarely ever performed, despite the fact that it’s one of the playwright’s most complexly plotted, entertaining, surprise-packed, and satisfying plays - all of which made it very popular, you know, in the olden days. But modern critics tend to turn their noses up at it, as they do anything Shakespeare wrote for the sheer happy hell of it - which is more-or-less what "Cymbeline" feels like. As that other old Latin saying goes: Prolixior est unum rabidus fabula. Meaning: “This is one crazy play!” There’s a woman disguised as a boy. An aging ruler losing his kingdom and his sanity. A soldier convincing a married man his wife has been unfaithful. And a magic potion that makes the living appear to be dead. And that’s just for starters. "Cymbeline" carries so many plot ideas reminiscent of Shakespeare’s other plays, it sometimes seems like a cross between a deliberate self-parody and a career retrospective. The play is named for the crazy English king Cymbeline, but the true heroine of the story is his daughter Imogen, played with brilliant simplicity and sweetness by Stella Heath. Having P.O.’d her papa by refusing to marry the obnoxiously self-loving prince Cloten -a hilarious Thomas Gorrebeeck - instead marrying the lowly Roman orphan Leonatus Posthumus - also Gorrebeeck, a quick-change artist of the highest order - Imogen becomes the target of her duplicitous stepmother, the queen, and also the subject of a certain test-of-fidelity on the part of Posthumus. Falsely accused of fooling around, she ends up on the run, dressed in drag, with wacky old Cloten in pursuit, and that’s where a pair of kidnapped princes raised as mountain men enter the story. Like I said, Crazy! And in this light-hearted production, director Robert Currier keeps things frisking along, tackling the problem of the play’s complexity by inserting a few original songs in place of Shakespeare’s text, and adding a few lines of his own here and there to clear things up and explain what’s going on. I’d have preferred the more classic approach of simply directing the play in a way that makes it understandable to the audience, but hey! It’s sort of fun and it kind of works. And since very few audience members will have seen "Cymbeline" before, it’s likely no one will know the difference. "Cymbeline" runs Friday–Sunday through July 26 at Forest Meadows Amphitheater at Dominican University. www.marinshakespeare.org And as they say in Latin . . . Ego sum David Templeton, Second Row Center, enim KRCB.

Lesley Currier discusses her past twenty years as Managing Director at the Marin Shakespeare Company and their current 2009 season. Interviewed by Denise Battista, Editor-in-Chief of PlayShakespeare.com.