Wanda's Picks

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!

We open with a rebroadcast of Brothers in Pen(itentiary). We close with a conversation with members of Umbuntu 2014 Summer Theater Festival: Breaking Chains! They speak about the Sept. 2014 Theatre Festival.

Wanda's Picks Radio Show: Umbuntu Theatre Fest

Brothers in Pen is the collective name of the writers included in the fiction and memoir anthologies of the Wednesday Night Creative Writing Class at San Quentin State Prison. The Prison Arts Project has been featured in the Bay Area Now7 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, in San Francisco, 6-7 p.m. It is a free event. Joining us on the air are members of Brothers in Pen with facilitator, Zoe Mullery: Ernie Laszlo, Henry Montgomery, Talib Brooks, Carl Irons & Jerry Elster. José Navarrete speaks about The Anastacio Project: Stories of Immigration, Border Violence, Resistance and Hope, having its world premiere Sept. 19-21, 8 p.m. nightly,at EastSide Arts Alliance Cultural Center, 2277 International Blvd. in Oakland.Navarrete’s NAKA Dance Theater, in a multidisciplinary performance investigating race relations, state brutality and border violence. Combining interactive video and sound, a large-format mural, spoken word and dance.Dam/aged, the Musical is a theatrical performance that intentionally addresses the harsh realities or urban blight that exist in communities of color across America. Social issues that include prostitution, gang violence, substance abuse, domestic violence, and absent fathers, are weaved into an abstract multimedia musical to explore the struggles of several young people as they attempt to rise above the social inequities that have traditionally plagued communities of color. We speak to playwright & actor, Bronche Tayson (Jeremiah), and actors:Deaunte Imani White (Ivan; he’s choreographer too), Donna Marie (Michelle Oday), Denmark Gatewood (Tremain Soulless). Performances: 9/14 @2:30; 9/20 @ 4 p.m.Visit sffringe.org

Wanda's Picks Radio Show: Brothers in Pen(itentiary)

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!

We continue the SF Fringe Festivalon the Air with a rebroadcast of the special interview with Campo Maldito playwright and director Bennett Fisher & Jesca Prudencio; continuing with Blues for Charles's playwright Harry R. Hall; and closing with the creative playwright duo: Linda Ayres-Frederick and Nancy Cooper Frank'sAssorted Domestic Emergencies (smile).

Visit www.sffringe.org or 415-673-3847. All plays are at the Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy Street, in San Francisco Sept. 5-20, 2014.

Wanda's Picks Radio Show:The SF Fringe Special Con't.

Today Bennett Fisher, playwright and Jesca Prudencio, director, join us to talk about the smashing successful run of Campo Maldito at San Francisco Fringe Festival. There are three more performances: 9/12 at 6 p.m., 9/18 at 10:30 p.m., 9/16 at 7 p.m., and 9/20 at 2:30 p.m. at the Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy Street in San Francisco. See http://www.peopleofinterest.org/ (trailer) & http://www.ubuntutheaterproject.com/ 

Bennett Fisher is company member of Campo Santo, an associate artist with the Cutting Ball Theater, and a co-founder of the San Francisco Theater Pub. His plays include Campo Maldito, Borealis, Pay Dirt, Hermes, Don’t Be Evil, Devil of a Time, and Whoa is Me. Bennett was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is currently pursuing his MFA in playwriting at UC San Diego, class of 2016.

Jesca Prudencio is a director, choreographer, and community based artist. She has worked on new plays, musicals, and dance theater works with companies including The Movement Theatre Company, Fresh Ground Pepper, Ingenue Theatre, and the Asian American Arts Alliance. Her site-specific dance pieces include We Walk, We Stop at the Astor Place intersection and Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing in Washington Square Park. As a member of Ping Chong + Company, she has worked as a writer, director, and facilitator on a dozen interdisciplinary and documentary theater projects, and including co-writing and directing Listen To Me: voices of survivors of child sexual abuse and those who help them presented in the Bronx and Manhattan. She recently directed and choreographed a new musicalThe Firebird at NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. Jesca has a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Wanda's Picks Radio SF Fringe Special

Crystal L. Bass is an American author, playwright, freelance writer, and motivational speaker. Bass has used her platform to uncover and illuminate issues that are important to young women, to ultimately empower and strengthen them. Her hit stage play titled, "Ain't No Love Like A Mother's Love," opens in Baltimore City Nov. 15. Kehinde Koyejo, Artistic Director, InterACT Works, is curator of the 10-minute one-act play series “Don’t Call Me Crazy: A Glimpse into the World of Mental Illness: An Afternoon of Short Plays and Dialogue at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 3 p.m. 406 14th Street in Oakland, Sun., Sept. 7, then in a reprise “Through the Eyes of Buddha at SGI-USA, Oakland Buddhist Center, 3834 Opal Street in Oakland, Sept. 14, at 1 p.m. Kehinde (“Next Step”) is joined by participating playwrights: Nathan Yungerberg (“Golden Gate”) and Kineithea Carter (“Depression Daughter”). Visit http://www.interactworks.org/upcoming-interactions.htm Poets Genny Lim and Steve Dickison join us to talk about “Struggle for a New World: Fred Ho Memorial Tribute,” Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014, 2:00-4:30 p.m. at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 2 p.m., 388-9th Street, upstairs Rm. 290, (510) 637-0455. Admission is free. This remarkable landmark gathering of Fred Ho's artistic collaborators, ranging from composers, musicians, poets, singers, storytellers and activists, have come together to pay homage to this great baritone saxophone-composer, cultural activist, teacher, author, pioneer and legend. To listen to Fred Ho http://www.mp3olimp.net/fred-ho/ We close with a conversation with San Francisco native, Barry “Shabaka” Henley, about the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre production of the World Premiere of his Mingus Remixed, directed by Delroy Lindo Sept. 5-6 in San Francisco, www.lhtsf.org

Wanda's Picks Radio Show: Fred Ho Tribute; Shabaka's Mingus Remixed