MO`OLELO [mo-oh-Leh-low] Hawaiian story/legend/tale/narrative

a note from Amlin Gray

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:48:52 +0000

Earlier this year, we produced HOW I GOT THAT STORY by Amlin Gray. We reached out to him prior to the production but were unsuccessful at making a connection then.

What a wonderful surprise to wake up this morning to an email from THE Mr. Gray himself! With his permission, we are sharing his message:

Dear Ms. Sueko,

I was sorry that we didn’t get to have that talk you broached during the runup to your HOW I GOT THAT STORY—the more so this morning after I Googled the show and saw what an event you turned it into—what an instrument for community interchange. But it appears that this is how Mo’Olelo always works. It looks like an extraordinary organization.

The show, just as a show (if that means anything, given that you always make a show more than a show), seems to have gone well too. The critics’ reservations (and the veteran’s comment that he found the Reporter “unbelievable”) are such as I have heard before, so guess what, It’s the play, Gray. But you appear to have negotiated the difficult slide from absurd to traumatic with great skill and taste.

Thanks for reviving the play (which seems mostly to be done only in Germany these days—Wie Ich Zu der Geschichte Kam). And for making such good social use of what it offers.

Yours,

Amlin

He added in a second email:

By all means share my note around. I was tremendously excited and gratified to see the event you made of the piece for your community.

Let me mention, besides, that I love it when, too rarely, an Asian-American actor plays the Event. It gives him (or her—that’s happened too) a leg up on representing what is, after all, an Asian—well, event. And it’s clear that your Reporter held his own. After all, he’s structurally the lead, but I didn’t make it easy for him.

All best for your ongoing work,

Amlin

The community engagement work we do at Mo`olelo is quite unusual, and so reading Mr. Gray’s words and his appreciation of that community work was tremendously validating and encouraging.

Mahalo to Mr. Gray and to the community that surrounded HOW I GOT THAT STORY!

photo by sam hodgson

Professor T. Ford comes to rehearsal

admin — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:35:35 +0000

Professor T. Ford (right) with Actor Monique Gaffney

On Friday, May 11, Professor T. Ford joined the cast and company of Hoodoo Love to share valuable dramaturgical research.

She discussed the connections between Zora Neale Hurston’s writings and Hoodoo Love; the history and spread of blues music; gender and the blues; different sounds and styles of blues music as connected to its geographic roots; numerology; African cosmology; the significance of peaches; the sounds of the language in Memphis in the 1920s and 1930s and its origins in Bantu sounds; Robert Johnson; the significance of crossroads and trains; and much much more.

We are so grateful for Professor T. and her generosity in sharing her knowledge and wisdom.

You can hear Professor T. Ford speak at two pre-show talks for Hoodoo Love. Read about them here.

Hoodoo Love Ticket Availability as of May 10

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:44:32 +0000

We’re four weeks away from the first preview of HOODOO LOVE and already over 1/3- SOLD OUT! Here’s the current ticket availability below. Click here to order your tickets or call us at 619-342-7395.

Thursday, June 7, 8:00 PM – PREVIEW – 82 tickets available

Friday, June 8, 8:00 PM –PREVIEW – only 9 tickets available

Saturday, June 9, 8:00 PM – PREVIEW – SOLD OUT by The Dr. Floyd Gaffney Memorial Fund (Contact them for tickets); Post-Show Talk with the Director & Cast

Sunday, June 10, 2:00 PM – PREVIEW -79 tickets available; Post-Show Talk with Sherehe Hollins & Starla Lewis

Wednesday, June 13, 7:00 PM – SOLD OUT - Kaiser Permanente Night at the Theater!

Thursday, June 14, 8:00 PM – PREVIEW - 88 tickets available

Friday, June 15, 8:00 PM – PRESS OPENING – only 20 tickets available

Saturday, June 16, 8:00 PM - 96 tickets available

Sunday, June 17, 2:00 PM - 100 tickets available - Post-Show Talk with the cast

Wednesday, June 20, 8:00 PM - 77 tickets available – Join the Central San Diego Black Chamber of Commerce at this performance, contact them for tickets

Thursday, June 21, 8:00 PM - 88 tickets available

Friday, June 22, 8:00 PM– 98 tickets available – Join the NAACP San Diego Branch at this performance, contact them for ticket information

Saturday, June 23, 8:00 PM - 98 tickets available

Sunday, June 24, 2:00 PM - 101 tickets available

Wednesday, June 27, 8:00 PM - 103 tickets available; Pre-Show Talk with Professor T. Ford at 7:15 PM “Zora Neale Hurston: The Collector of Folktales”

Thursday, June 28, 8:00 PM - 102 tickets available; Pre-Show Talk with Professor T. Ford at 7:15 PM “Women and the Blues (1930s, 1940s)”

Friday, June 29, 8:00 PM - 103 tickets available

Saturday, June 30, 8:00 PM - only 50 tickets available; Join The Chocolate Voice at this performance, contact them for tickets

Sunday, July 1, 2:00 PM - 96 tickets available

Click here to order your tickets or call us at 619-342-7395.

Auditions for KITA Y FERNANDA

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:37:40 +0000

Mo`olelo Audition Notice

Production –KITA Y FERNANDA by Tanya Saracho

Producer – Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company

Director – Robert Castro & Seema Sueko

Audition Date/Time – Sunday, May 27, 2012, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm, by appointment

Callback Date/Time – Sunday, June 3, 2012, TBA, by appointment

Production Dates –

First Rehearsal: August 28, 2012
Previews Begin: September 26, 2012
Closes, October 21, 2012

How to schedule an audition – Email info@moolelo.net. Type “audition request” in subject line. Attach your headshot and resume. We will reply with an audition time and sides to prepare.

Pay Rate – Equity SPT Cat 5 contract, $349/week, plus health and pension
Non-union actors are invited to audition and will be paid the same union rate, per Mo`olelo’s labor-friendly policies

Location of Audition – The 10^th Avenue Theatre
930 10th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101, 3^rd floor

Cast Breakdown

Kita – Latina female, plays from age 8 – 35; speaks Spanish; dark, indigenous features; smaller than Fernanda. Mexican-born undocumented resident of the United States, daughter of the maid.

Fernanda – Latina female, plays from age 8 – 35; speaks Spanish; lighter skin and more European/Mestizo features; taller than Kita; Mexican national legally living in the U.S.; raised with Mexican upper class values.

Dona Silvia – Upper class Mexican woman in her 30s – 50s; speaks only Spanish; light skin; Fernanda’s mother; also plays Chela, Kita’s adolescent Chicana friend.

Concha – Latina female, 30s-50s; speaks only Spanish; darker skin; maid of the household; Kita’s mother; also plays Jessica, Fernanda’s teenaged friend.

Consensus Organizer of the Year 2012

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:37:59 +0000

Mo`olelo’s Executive Artistic Director, Seema Sueko, has long been a fan of the Consensus Organizing Center at San Diego State University. She met the Center’s Founder, Mike Eichler, when they both attended a lecture by Richard Dreyfus at SDSU. They struck up a conversation. Seema bought Mike’s book on Consensus Organizing, Mike signed up for Seema’s playwriting classes, and a “mutual admiration society” began.

Mo`olelo incorporates Consensus Organizing (CO) strategies and methods in our play production process. (Read about that here.) We’ve used this process to engage a wide diversity of communities, and others have noticed our success with this process. Mo`olelo’s Board of Trustees moved our commitment to the CO process to a higher level last year when they created a Board-level Consensus Organizing Committee at their 2011 Strategic Planning Meeting. And yesterday, at the Meet and Greet for Hoodoo Love, the Consensus Organizing Center honored Seema and Mo`olelo with their 2012 Consensus Organizer of the Year Award.

Mahalo, Consensus Organizing Center. This means so much to us!

First day of rehearsal!

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:04:08 +0000

Tuesday, May 8 was the first day of rehearsal for HOODOO LOVE!

In addition to the usual Equity business, script read-through, and design presentations, we invited our community stakeholders to join us for the Meet and Greet! Board members, donors, community partners, post-show speakers, community leaders, and friends of friends helped us launch the rehearsal process. Here’s a photo of the whole gang:

Hoodoo Love Meet and Greet

And here are some other shots from Day 1:

We’re on our way!

News from Paul

admin — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:51:25 +0000

Here’s the latest from CCF Grantee Manuel Paul Lopez:

Photo by Paul Sanchez

Above is a photograph a good friend of mine and I took on a recent day trip along the San Diego/Tijuana border fence. I’ll always remember the small bird that stood defiantly on the barbed wire and occasionally circled above both sides in graceful sweeps.

As I was finishing up some last minute preparations for my drive to the Imperial Valley early Saturday morning to attend the Tech de Mayo conference at Imperial Valley College, I came across a fascinating conversation between Bill Moyers and Luis Alberto Urrea late Friday night on PBS. You can watch the whole episode here. Much of Urrea’s work explores life along the border, often shedding light on communities isolated and/or disenfranchised. This was most notably evident when he wrote about a community of people living among the trash heaps at a Tijuana dump. The book was called Across the Wire. In his interview with Moyers, Urrea retells the stories of these people, explaining his aim to place them at the forefront, so that we, as a society, are forced to face these devastating issues and consider their heartbreaking consequences. In one segment, Urrea describes the geography of one of these dumps, where children are buried and parents use their cribs as headstones. It’s a mind-blowing account.

What resonated with me most during this conversation is when Urrea addresses the border wall as a physical metaphor, something we all know—after all, we can see it. We can Google it. But Urrea states that in addition to this large, grizzly structure, there are also many other borders between us: gender borders, sexuality, class, ethnicity, etc. An example he shared was one that told the story about the border that crossed through his childhood apartment in Tijuana, where there was a clear distinction between his American mother and Mexican father, and how that division swelled with time. He humorously recalls that Walter Cronkite was the ambassador between both sides, because it was the only time when the family actually sat together to engage in a common activity.

Separation. Isolation. Marginalization.

I’ve thought a lot about these words over the years, having lived most of my life up against the border fence, its shadow on my shoulder as a reminder. Some factions (again, another border) scream to lengthen the U.S./Mexican border–”Build that thing across the whole Southwest!” “Add a moat!” “Electrify that mother!” The chants are equal parts real, with the agenda to support them, and strangely surreal. What they don’t know is that the border wall we are building is growing. It grows by the mile with each Oscar Grant that falls to the hands of injustice; it sprouts barbed teeth with the Trayvon Martin case; it reaches for the clouds when another family loses a home, or a parent loses his or her job. Murders in places like Juarez. Proposition 8 in California. SB1070 in Arizona. The countless cases of domestic violence and the men who get away with their barbaric crimes. Drug addiction and the asinine laws associated with it, encaging thousands behind bars, and the prison facilities built to accommodate these efforts when education budgets are continuously slashed. The list grows and grows. The borders strengthen and hiss like wild serpents with each attempt to combat these issues. And there are those who feed it, willingly contributing to the vitriol, and those who do so indirectly by remaining quiet. But I’m confident and hopeful, because I know there are those who courageously take a stand, and with enough noise and direct action, will make change. We must question ourselves and consider the role(s) we play in all of this before the divisions swell so widely that we can no longer hear one another.

Read Paul’s past blog entries here:

http://moolelo.net/2012/04/07/the-latest-from-paul/ (april 2012)

http://moolelo.net/2012/03/06/a-title-poem-and-the-bitter-oleander/ (march 2012)

http://moolelo.net/2012/02/02/la-palabra-y-la-imagen/ (february 2012)

http://moolelo.net/2012/01/03/introducing-manuel-paul-lopez-ccf-grant-recipient/ (january 2012)

Professor T. Ford

admin — Sun, 06 May 2012 22:58:22 +0000

Professor T. Ford will lead two pre-show talks for HOODOO LOVE:

Wed, June 27, 7:15 PM- Pre-Show Talk in the gallery with Professor T. Ford “Zora Neale Hurston – The Collector of Folktales”

Thurs, June 28, 7:15 PM – Pre-Show Talk in the gallery with Professor T. Ford “Women and the Blues (1930s, 1940s)”

Read about Professor Ford here:

Professor T. Ford has been an educator for more than 25 years at Grossmont College where she is a Counselor and adjunct faculty in the English and Cross Cultural Studies Departments. She holds a Distinguished Faculty title. She is also an adjunct faculty member in Mesa College’s Black Studies Dept. Courses taught by Prof. Ford include: African American Literature, Black Women in the Media and Literature, and Blues as Literature, History and Culture. She has completed professional and graduate studies in African American Literature at the University of Kansas—Project on the History of Black Writing/The Langston Hughes Project and The Wrighting Connection: The Works of Richard Wright. She is a member of the Toni Morrison Society. Her most recent sabbatical leave included attending the Sixth Biennial Conference: “Toni Morrison et les Circuits de l’Imaginaire” in Paris, France, 2010. At the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, she studied the 18th Century Poets. And most recently she has been accepted as a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar and will study African American History and Culture in the Georgia Lowcountry: Savannah & The Coastal Islands 1750-1950. Her contributions to the arts community include penning the first commissioned stage rendition of Sherley Anne Williams’ Dessa Rose, under the direction of the late Dr. Floyd Gaffney. She was executive producer for San Diego’s premiere of “From Whores to Matriarchs” directed by Rhodessa Jones. For thirteen years she served with Debi Dorn as Artistic Director for San Diego’s Emmy-award winning Teen Connection Theatre Troupe. She is a past member of the Board of Directors for both Black Friars and Common Ground Theatre. Currently, she is a board member for the critically acclaimed transcenDANCE Youth Arts Project—recipients of the 2012 Peace Maker award. Her storytelling focus, as a member of Black Storytellers of San Diego, Inc., is rooted in the works of Zora Neale Hurston.

To order tickets to the June 27 and 28 performances, click here.

NAACP Night at HOODOO LOVE

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:26:42 +0000

Patron Sponsor

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:31:10 +0000

Mahalo to Susan Baer, Ph.D. and Bruce Thornburg for their Sponsorship of our upcoming production, HOODOO LOVE by Katori Hall!

Susan and Bruce have been part of the Mo`olelo family since 2009 and joined the Founders Circle in 2010. Besides seeing every production since 2009, they have also sponsored other nonprofit organizations to attend our shows, have participated in the ‘Meet and Greets’ with the cast, and have become an important part of the Mo`olelo `ohana.

A typical Mo`olelo production costs $50,000 – $70,000. We keep our ticket prices low and so ticket sales cover approximately 30% of the production costs. The remaining costs are covered by grants and generous donors like Susan and Bruce who believe that theater can and should play a central role in the important dialogues of our communities.

If you’re interested in learning how you can become a production sponsor, please contact seema@moolelo.net. Mahalo!