Brava's 'Me, Myself and I Series' Opens 11/19

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you." Maya Angelou. Brava! for Women in the Arts is proud to present the Me, Myself & I Series, a collection of solo works by emerging and established California writer and performers. Chosen from a series of works submitted last year, four theatre artists will perform new works created specifically for this series. The artists featured are D'Lo, Jeanne Haynes, Rachel Parker and Anthem Salgado. The concept for the series developed as Brava made a firm commitment to produce the work of local artists and be an active participant in growing the theatre arts community in Northern California. "As one of the strong artistic values of the organization, this series was inevitable. And great! These pieces are ironic, sexy, surprising, funny and totally worth seeing theatrically. If I thought they weren't interesting, we would not be doing them. We don't have room in our season for shows for anything less. " Say Managing Director, Hetal Patel. All four shows will run in rep using the same set. Each night will feature two to all four of the artists and will rotate throughout the series, each show being under an hour. Listed below is the description and bios for each show.

Minor D'Tales

Written and Performed by D'Lo

A series of excerpts from larger works-in-progress which include story-telling and character monologues will inspire you to know more. Although known for mostly comedic work, D'Lo is honored to also share work that reflects D'Lo's latest ventures in the many writing and performance realms of dramatic theater. D'Lo will be featured opening weekend.
Performance Dates: November 19, 20, 21, 22, 2009.

About D'Lo: Described as a "jolt of creative and comedic energy", D'Lo is a Tamil Sri L.A.nkan-American, political theatre artist/writer, music producer and director. D'Lo also performs and facilitates performance workshops extensively throughout the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Sri Lanka and India. D'Lo holds a BA from UCLA in Ethnomusicology and is a graduate of New York's School of Audio Engineering (SAE). In 2004, D'Lo had a sold-out NYC run of Ballin With My Bois, D's queer hip-hop theater piece. Aside from touring the university/college circuit, this year, D'Lo did a Cornerstone Theater production of For All Time at CIW, a staged reading of Terrry Wolverton's play Embers, sound design for Adelina Anthony's Brusing for Besos, directed 2 solo shows for Teada's Healing Aloud Season (Raquel Salinas and Shyamala Moorty), wrote and collaborated with Theater Mu in Minneapolis on a Taiko Show and performed at the Bay Area's Fresh Meat Festival. Currently, D'Lo is touring with Ramble-Ations: A One D'Lo Show which received the NPN Creation Fund Grant co-commissioned by Pangea World Theater and New World Theater. Ramble-Ations will be featured at Brava March 17-April 13, 2010.

Bare Knuckle
Written and Performed by Anthem Salgado, Directed by Evren Odcikin.
A warrior's greatest untapped power may reside in his surrender. In this ‘mixtape' of text and movement, one man dreams himself a fighter and sets off on a mystical journey from the subculture of New York City nightlife to the sun-baked jungle of the Philippines to pursue the meaning of his vision. Filled with fateful encounters with psychics, aliens, and even one man who strangely resembles Mike Tyson, Bare Knuckle chronicles this man's quest for balance between his concept of manhood vs. his relationship with mankind. Odcikin says, "Anthem is an accomplished MC and a very charismatic storyteller. It's personally been thrilling to work with an artist that has such a wide base of inspiration in his creative process---from his own bad-boy adolescence to "The Art of War", from found poetry to the always cryptic words of Mike Tyson. The play deals with any modern man's journey in coming to terms with his own misconceptions of what it means to be a man -- it's hard-hitting, emotional, and funny as hell. We've already had a lot of fun creating the textual skeleton of the piece and I cannot wait to find our beats, get into the groove, and get this show on the road." Performance Dates: November 21, 22, 23,24, 29 and Dec 1, 3, 2009.

Anthem Salgado, a multi-disciplinary artist and educator, has performed his original solo-theater creations on the stages of Asian Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Intersection for the Arts, and Kearny Street Workshop. He made his ensemble member debut as "Man" under the direction of Raelle Myrick-Hodges in Friends by Kobo Abe, which opened Brava's
2008-2009 season and 2nd Stage Theater. Salgado has presented his spoken word throughout the Bay Area, New York, Honolulu, and Manila. As a literary artist, his fiction appears in the anthologies Field of Mirrors and I Saw My Ex at a Party. He has held teaching artist residencies for Brava and at Downtown High School. Salgado was awarded a Philippines Fulbright-Hays scholarship via Sonoma State University's North Bay International Studies Program, and was elected Young Leader of Color by Theatre Communications Group.

The Stove is White- Crossing the Racial Divide
Written and Performed by Jeanne Haynes, Directed by Raelle Myrick-Hodges

With the turbulent civil rights era as background, Haynes portrays a cast of unforgettable characters who touched her life including entertainers in New York City, her news editor in the Jim Crow South, rioters in San Francisco and her earnest young step-daughter who, when Haynes becomes the only White person in their large Black family, offers the comforting observation, "But the stove is white!" With unflinching candor in this one-woman show, Haynes shares personal experiences of both racial prejudice and the promise of reconciliation. The Stove Is White is a racially themed production dedicated to her African-American stepchildren and biracial children. Haynes impersonates a cast of unforgettable characters in unflinching personal civil rights tales showcasing New York City's entertainment world, Southern sit-ins and San Francisco race riots. The production features a sound tract of a dozen hallmark musical selections from Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony, Madame Butterfly and Hair. Examining racial prejudice, including her own, the show dramatically demonstrates how various locations, eras, and experiences affect who we come to be. The Stove Is White, Haynes' third original theater piece and first one-woman show, had its premiere performance June 25 at The Marsh, San Francisco to a packed. Performance Dates: November 19, 22, 23, 29 December 1, 3

Jeanne Haynes Inspired by a storytelling seminar 12 years ago, Haynes abandoned her media relations consulting business to become a full time performer and teacher. The Stove Is White is her third original theater piece. Her venues in the City include the 2009 San Francisco Theater Festival, The Marsh, ODC Theater and Noh Space at Theatre of Yugen; Julia Morgan Theatre and The Ashby Stage in Berkeley; Bay Area Storytelling Festival, regional Telebrations, KPFA FM Berkeley Public Radio and schools throughout the Bay Area. A former news reporter with a degree in Journalism, she draws from her communication background to tell personal and traditional tales. She teaches weekly adult storytelling classes at Stagebridge, Oakland, and conducts senior workshops. As an artist in residence she has taught the art of storytelling to some 2000 students in 15+ Bay Area schools.

On the Rocks

Written and Performed by Rachel Parker, Directed by Matthew Graham Smith

A woman's journey through her life as seen through the most iconic of American holiday rituals-Christmas. Rachel explores the darkly comic threads of her past, digging through the seasonal escapades she survived with her erratic, loving but altogether eccentric and conflicted mother including: a divorce, a wedding, a divorce, another wedding, rot gut wine and tenuously brittle and fragile love. Smith says, "We've work-shopped the piece going deeper into what the central relationship of the piece is all about, a story of a mother and a daughter struggling to love each other amidst some serious obstacles." Performances: November 20, 22, 23, 24, 29 December 1, 3, 2009

Rachel Parker Rachel has performed on stages spanning the East and West-sides of Los Angeles, that is. Her work has been seen at The WeHo Church, The Raven Theatre in the NoHo Arts District, The Electric Lodge and The Complex Theatre on Theatre Row in Hollywood. She is often seen reading essays and short pieces in taverns across the greater L.A. area, including most recently at the Hyperion Tavern. She received her education in Theatre at the University of Southern California where she studied acting, playwriting and controlled substances. Several years ago, her feature film Front (which she wrote and produced) screened to an audience of dozens in the New York Independent Film Festival and then faded into immediate and permanent obscurity. This is her first time performing at Brava. When she's not busy working in the command center of her home in downtown Los Angeles, she's either taking or teaching a yoga class and wondering what it is that her dog Toby has against large or small things with wheels and noisy children.

Directors Evren Odcikin, Matthew Graham Smith and Raelle Myrick-Hodges work with these performers to develop these new works for future exploration. "Honestly, I'm not a fan of solo work, I got into theater for collaboration not isolation" says Artistic Director, Raelle Myrick-Hodges. "But, there's something that strikes me about these four artists seeing each other's work, producing work together with directors they would normally never be paired with that is very exciting." Working in Rep, all three directors will share a set, stage manager and entire production team.

Brava's current season is wide in scope as the organization is determined to establish new bonds with the Bay Area Arts Community by producing an equal amount of local artist each season. Me, Myself and I begin November 19th through December 3, 2009. Tickets for some shows will be sold individually and by package. Tickets range from $7 (only one show) to $20.

Cheat Sheet:
Tickets: Range from $7-$20. Some nights will have individual tickets for one of the performers.
When: November 19-December 3
Thursday, November 19 - Opening D'Lo and Jeanne Haynes, 7pm
Friday, November 20 - D'Lo and Rachel Parker, 8pm
Saturday, November 21 - D'Lo and Anthem Salgado, 8pm
Sunday, November 22 - Rachel Parker and Jeanne Haynes 3pm; D'Lo and Anthem Salgado 8pm
Monday, November 23 - Anthem Salgado, Jeanne Haynes, Rachel Parker 7pm (industry night)
Tuesday, November 24 - Rachel Parker and Anthem Salgado 7pm
Sunday, November 29 - Rachel Parker, Anthem Salgado, Jeanne Haynes 3pm
Tuesday, December 1 - Anthem Salgado and Jeanne Haynes 7pm
Thursday, December 3 - Rachel Parker and Jeanne Haynes and Anthem Salgado

Where:Brava Theater Center
2781 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Box Office: Open from 3-6pm Monday - Friday and half hour prior to show
Contact information: 415.641.2822, info@brava.org
www.brava.org

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