Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty, Theatre, and Millinery for the 9th Ward!
This year's topic is Poverty. I've spent the past couple days thinking about what to write and doing some googling of potential topic inspiration.
I first considered posting a run-down of links to a bunch of different Instructables.com pages illustrating how to make various amazing costumes out of recycled/dumpster-dove materials. I ultimately chucked that plan, though, because really, anyone can sift through that site for hours and hours and find tons of cool stuff; a links-list from me wasn't going to be all that edifying, nor would it actually explore any real confrontation of poverty and theatre.
I then thought about looking for particular organizations to spotlight, groups that use theatre as a tool for illuminating or combating poverty, seeing what sorts of productions they do and such, and that turned up some really cool information.
The first group i found was the Los Angeles Poverty Department (check that acronym), a theatre group based in Los Angeles' Skid Row, comprised of homeless performers. According to their website:
Los Angeles Poverty Department was founded in 1985 by director, actor, activist, and writer John Malpede. At its inception, LAPD was the first performance group in the nation made up principally of homeless people. LAPD is dedicated to building community on Skid Row, Los Angeles. Since 1985, the company has offered performance workshops that are free and open to the Skid Row community- partnering with numerous social service and advocacy groups, including SRO Housing, Inc.; LA Community Action Network; The Downtown Women’s Action Coalition; St.Vincent DePaul Center; The Salvation Army’s Women’s and Men’s drug recovery programs; and the Inner City Law Center.
A theater-without-walls for people living in Los Angeles’ inner city, LAPD has also partnered with communities and arts organizations across the United States to create powerful original works that speak to a range of political issues. Extended residencies have been held in Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, San Francisco, Houston, and Minneapolis, among other cities.
On a Carolinian regional note, they did a post-Katrina residency in Charlotte, NC, called Emergency Evacuation Plan for the City of Charlotte, which looked pretty cool. They filmed some of the workshopping process and put it on YouTube, and i think the homeless people are much better at generating performative interest than the super-overacting volunteer they show.
I then did some looking around at other performance groups for homeless people. I found Off the Streets, who describe themselves thus:
OTS is a professional theater group for the homeless. Cast members, in different stages of homelessness, travel the country performing a play in an effort to:
1) Rebuild and repair their self esteem.
2) Commit to sobriety as well as trying to reconnect with their families and their faith.
3) Earn money to rebuild themselves financially.
4) Educate audiences about homelessness, addiction and life on the streets.
For their efforts cast members receive a stipend for each rehearsal they attend and split an equal share of the gate for each performance.
I also found At Home On Stage, a non-profit organization linking the professional theatre community in NYC with homeless people, working together to put on therapeutic and benefit productions. They describe themselves thus:
AT HOME ON STAGE is a non-profit project that aims to explore the experiences of homeless individuals living in New York City, using the power of theater to help them not only find and express their voices, but share them with the New York community. Many organizations utilize the performing arts to simultaneously entertain and educate audiences; New Yorkers, of all people, know the importance of the stage in our culture and city at large. AT HOME ON STAGE will use the talents of trained actors, directors, and improvisers to allow those who are so often ignored and underserved, a chance to share their stories.
Another organization i came across was Artists Striving to End Poverty. Here's what ASTEP says about their organization:
ASTEP creates change for three groups:
- Children - ASTEP empowers young people with the tools of self-expression and decision-making necessary to lead healthy lives and to contribute to their communities
- Communities - ASTEP renews communities’ commitment to the arts and strengthens relationships, including relationships between artists and their communities as well as those between children and adults
- Artists - ASTEP reconnects artists with the power of the arts to transform society, encouraging them to use their talents in innovative and inspiring ways
They currently run programs both in the US and abroad--in southern India (Shanti Bhavan) and, beginning in 2009, Africa. Performance seems to be a big component to the programs they run, and wow, what an opportunity to volunteer! In the US, they pay for your travel; for programs abroad, you have to get yourself to south India or Africa, but then you've got room and board while you're there. If you do the Shanti Bhavan program, looks like you also get a free trip or two to Bangalore. The US programs generally are one month in duration, and the Shanti Bhavan program is six weeks.
I was also interested in trying to find information on theatre programs and performance groups that serve inner-city communities--teachers starting drama programs in crime-ridden low-income schools, or churches putting on productions for at-risk youth, etc.
I came across the fascinating Our Town production that teacher Catherine Borek put together at Dominguez High in Compton, CA, chronicled in a documentary by Scott Hamilton Kennedy. I found dozens of states with Shakespeare programs for their prison systems. I also found the NC Women's Prison Writing and Performance Project, which encourages the participants to develop performances from the script up.
Are there any theatre programs in your area that fit this bill? Please comment and tell me about them!
Charity Auction for Blog Action Day!
I mentioned a couple of days ago that there's a charity component to Blog Action Day; at the time, i encouraged y'all to help me fund sewing machines for a high school costume program. By the end of the day, we'd done it! The class had their funding for the new sewing machines. Thank you SO much to everyone who contributed!
I also mentioned in that post that i was going to support a second poverty-related charity, in addition to adopting some costuming-related projects for underpriveleged classrooms through DonorsChoose.org.
I'm also going to auction "Aunt Pittypat," the 1830s high-crowned bonnet whose construction i chronicled, to benefit Historic Green, an exciting organization dedicated to rebuilding the Holy Cross area of New Orleans 9th Ward into an ecologically sound, carbon-neutral neighborhood while simultaneously restoring and preserving its historic architectural history.
You can access the auction here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230300742969
...and it runs for a week, so happy bidding!
Got any friends who love the 1830s? Forward the link for a great cause! This is the first in a series of millinery auctions i'm going to be doing to support various charities throughout the year. More on that as it happens...
