MediaRites Receives $5K from Spirit Mountain Community Fund for Theatre Diaspora Project

MediaRites, a nonprofit organization that provides innovative, award-winning radio documentary, theater and outreach programs today announced that is has received a $5,000 grant from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund for its Theatre Diaspora project.

MediaRites established the Theatre Diaspora project in 2014, comprising four staged readings as a volunteer effort with playwright, actor and director donations to launch an Asian American and Pacific Island (AAPI) theatre group in Portland, the only theatre of its kind in Oregon. Kathleen George, the director of the Spirit Mountain Community Fund presented the grant to MediaRites on June 17 in Grande Ronde, Ore. The grant will help Theatre Diaspora to produce more staged reading performances for the 2015-2016 season.

The Theatre Diaspora project began as a grassroots effort in 2014 to present the works of Asian American/Pacific Islander playwrights never produced in Portland and theatre artists who have difficulty finding work in mainstream theatre because of lack of opportunities. Theatre Diaspora as a MediaRites' project performs plays by Asian and Pacific Island (AAPI) playwrights and artists to add voices to the Portland theater community that would otherwise be unheard. This project puts AAPI perspectives in the spotlight and brings the Asian American community into the theatre who might not otherwise attend. Theatre Diaspora is committed to fiercely celebrating and creatively advocating for the AAPI experience through stage work. Each performance is followed by an audience "talkback" session to share viewer, playwright and actor experiences.

There were 28 grants totaling $682,785. The Spirit Mountain Community Foundation is the "philanthropic arm of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde." Since 1997, SMCF has awarded $65.3 million in grants in 11 counties and to Oregon's nine Federally Recognized Tribes.

"We are honored to receive the Spirit Mountain Community Fund Grant for Theatre Diaspora," stated Dmae Roberts, founder and executive producer of MediaRites. "Our mission is to bring diverse communities together through our projects, so this grant will allow us to produce more stage readings and talkbacks this season."

Check out the next two Theatre Diaspora productions:

Citizen Min, a play by Holly Yasui, highlights an evening of community and culture directed by Chisao Hata on July 29th at 6-7:30pm (followed by refreshments) at APANO, the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, atheir Jade/APANO Multicultural Space (JAMS) located at 2788 SE 82nd Ave., Suite 203 in Portland. Theatre Diaspora ensemble members, writer Holly Yasui and dramaturg and Breaking the Silence playwright Nikki Nojima-Louis (Breaking the Silence playwright) and community members will discuss the impact Minoru Yasui had on civil rights, immigration laws and national security, then and now. the play focuses on Yasui who protested the curfew imposed on Japanese Americans in Portland during WWII in order to start a legal test case. Yasui was an attorney, born in Hood River, Oregon who who fought laws targeted directly at Japanese Americans. Read more at the MinoruYasuiTributeProject.org.

Theory of Everything, written by Prince Gomolvilas, on Aug. 15th at Artists Repertory Theatre and Aug. 24th at Portland Center Stage . At a weekly UFO-spotting party at a Las Vegas wedding chapel, grandmother May declares to the pan-Asian gathering of family and friends that she encountered extraterrestrial visitors. The revelation kicks off a round-the-clock vigil in which irrepressible secrets come out, forever changing the lives of alien enthusiast Patty, best friend Shimmy, husband Hiro, law school dropout Lana, romantically unlucky Nef, and identity seeker Gilbert. More about Prince Gomolvilas here: www.princegomolvilas.com.

About MediaRites: MediaRites provides innovative, award-winning radio, theater and documentary programs. Previous programs include the eight hour-documentary radio series Crossing East and Coming Home: The Return of the Alutiiq Masks, the multimedia/theatre project The Breast Cancer Monologues and The Time Between, an original play and performance of Ellen McLaughlin's Tongue of a Bird. Our artistic documentaries have garnered two Peabody awards, the Asian American Journalists Award, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, the Clarion, the Heart of America, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award, and the Casey Medal. More information at the MediaRites website: www.mediarites.org.

For more about Theatre Diaspora, visit theatrediaspora.org.

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