Kelly Britt, Sara Duchovnay & Paige Mayes Join ACT MFAs for Big Thunder's #YesAllWomen Concert

New York City's Big Thunder Productions' #YesAllWomen Raise Your Voice will be presented at The Costume Shop at American Conservatory Theatre, on Sunday, November 9 at 7P.M., in a joint venture with San Francisco Conservatory of Music alums and ACT MFA students. Emcee Dana Aber will lead the concert, which hopes to connect performing arts communities around the country and give voice to the immediate social issue of gender equality.

This concert was designed to connect MFA students to rising-star Bay Area performers and acclaimed composers from New York City. Each NYC composer contributed a song addressing the national concerns of fear culture, harassment, and anti-female bullying that are encompassed within the #YesAllWomen movement. American Conservatory Theatre MFA students from every level of course work are adding their voice to the concert: First-year: Emily Brown (The Bats NYC, Texas Shakespeare Festival, American Shakespeare Center); Second-year students: Arthur Wise (Nat'l tour My Fair Lady, Arkansas Repertory), Lauren Hart (Summer Repertory at Santa Rosa), and Michael McIntire (Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, Maples Rep) ; Third-year MFA candidate: Dominique Salerno (Santa Barbara Summer Repertory Theatre, Roma Fringe Festival).

The concert will feature special San Francisco Conservatory of Music alumnae from the opera community, Kelly Britt (Don Giovanni for Mendocino Music Festival & Cinnabar Opera, Guys and Dolls for Broadway by the Bay) and Sara Duchovnay (Philip Glass & Allen Ginsberg's Hydrogen Jukebox for West Edge Opera, Falstaff for Opera San Jose). Joining the ACT students in this performance are Paige Mayes, of ACT's STC 2014 program and the soon to open Avenue Q, Lily Womble from the Spark SF Improv group, who also works with the Women's Funding Network, and Puerto Rican native Samuel Prince (MFA student at the Academy of Art University, graduate of Puerto Rican Conservatory of Music). The concert will have music direction by Marla Perkins, and ACT's Rafael Jordan serving as Onsite Production Coordinator.

Big Thunder Production's #YesAllWomen Raise Your Voice concert hopes to connect performing arts communities around the country and add voice to this immediate social issue of gender equality. The concept stems from the #YesAllWomen Twitter handle, which quickly became an open forum for people to connect and recount their testimonies of harassment and assault following the YouTube confessionals and War On Women manifesto posted online by Elliot Rogers and the subsequent massacre he perpetrated at USC Santa Barbara in May of 2014.

The #YesAllWomen Raise Your Voice concert will also be presented in New York City on November 21 at 9:30pm at The Tank @ 46, with special guests Jenna Leigh Green, Tim Realbuto, and Kimberly Faye Greenberg. Big Thunder's #YesAllWomen Raise Your Voice concert is travelling with its creator and director, Dana Aber, into multiple cities to create a unified theatrical #YesAllWomen message. Tickets available for the New York City concert at www.TheTank.org.

Big Thunder Productions is a production company committed to the creation and proliferation of new works, and has created 5 concerts of original musical theatre songs designed to share the music of over 50 composers during its first year. Big Thunder believes theatre is an American experience, and is happy that this next collaborative project addresses a very American issue.

The Costume Shop at ACT is located at 1117 Market St at 7th st, across from Civic Center Plaza. The concert begins on Sunday at 7 PM, doors open at 6:30 PM. $15 tickets are available online, with limited door tickets available, reservations recommended. Ticket information available through eventbrite.com, brownpapertickets.com, and www.BigThunderNYC.com. Proceeds from the concert will help fund Big Thunder's next presentations of the #YesAllWomen RaiseYourVoice concert around the country.

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