What it is: Theatre and justice converge at the Regent Street Black Box as part of Wasatch Theatre Company's Page/Stage: Engage Festival. During these fraught times, it is important for us to find solace and inspiration in community. This community convening brings together voices from across the valley in using performance art to stand up to and against injustice. Join us!
How it works: Buy a ticket for one or both of the days. You can come and go as you please according to the schedules below. Check this website regularly for updates.
How it works: Buy a ticket for one or both of the days. You can come and go as you please according to the schedules below. Check this website regularly for updates.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
(SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
SATURDAY AUGUST 23
10:00 AM Opening Meditation
10:30 Keynote with Dr. Candace Christensen (see image below)
10:30 Keynote with Dr. Candace Christensen (see image below)
1:00 Political Theatre with Dr. Richard Scharine
featuring a staged reading of The Ford/Hill Project with actor Brien Keith and more!
3:00 Discussion facilitated by Philip Vernon (see image below)
featuring a staged reading of The Ford/Hill Project with actor Brien Keith and more!
3:00 Discussion facilitated by Philip Vernon (see image below)
Overview: this audience participation-driven, interactive, roundtable discussion seeks to
explore the current friction art (the theatre for this event) finds itself in vis-a-vis its traditional
role as source for community knowledge, discourse, connection, and history versus its
contemporary role and primary purpose as source of profit-driven mass entertainment.
Potential points for discussion:
• Art’s legacy history as “community newspaper.”
• Art’s evolution into commodity, especially as post renaissance status symbol.
• Art’s increasingly contemporary use as “life filler”.
• Art’s frequent dilemma of being misunderstood, misinterpreted by contemporary
audiences. What does this mean to both the art form and the bottom-line of its producers?
Possible case studies to be considered:
Philip’s essay for DSA Chicago, “The Les Mis Dilemma: socialism in the capitalist arts”
Groove Intruder’s song, “Influencers”
Peter, Paul, and Mary’s, “Puff the Magic Dragon”
explore the current friction art (the theatre for this event) finds itself in vis-a-vis its traditional
role as source for community knowledge, discourse, connection, and history versus its
contemporary role and primary purpose as source of profit-driven mass entertainment.
Potential points for discussion:
• Art’s legacy history as “community newspaper.”
• Art’s evolution into commodity, especially as post renaissance status symbol.
• Art’s increasingly contemporary use as “life filler”.
• Art’s frequent dilemma of being misunderstood, misinterpreted by contemporary
audiences. What does this mean to both the art form and the bottom-line of its producers?
Possible case studies to be considered:
Philip’s essay for DSA Chicago, “The Les Mis Dilemma: socialism in the capitalist arts”
Groove Intruder’s song, “Influencers”
Peter, Paul, and Mary’s, “Puff the Magic Dragon”
5:00 Address by RJ Walker, Slam Poet and Theatre Maker
7:30 PM Performance by Lords of Misrule Theatre Company
7:30 PM Performance by Lords of Misrule Theatre Company
SATURDAY AUGUST 24
11:00 AM Opening Meditation
11:30 Workshop with Liz Whittaker (see image below)
11:30 Workshop with Liz Whittaker (see image below)
1:00 Presentation by by Dr. Jim Martin
3:00 Readings from Banned Books, Wasatch Theatre Company Ensemble
5:00 Performance by Madazon Can-Can and Judas Rose (see image below)
REVOLTING: The Academy of Exile
3:00 Readings from Banned Books, Wasatch Theatre Company Ensemble
5:00 Performance by Madazon Can-Can and Judas Rose (see image below)
REVOLTING: The Academy of Exile
MEET THE ARTISTS!
Dr. M. Candace Christensen (they/them) studied theatre as an undergraduate, owned and operated a feminist theatre company (Avalon Isle, Women's Theatre Group), and designed and implemented a Theatre of the Oppressed intervention to address campus sexual violence. Dr. Christensen is currently an associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan and engages arts-based research methodologies focusing on the prevention of gendered, racial and anti-LGBTQ+ violence.
BRIEN KEITH's Salt Lake City stage credits spans two decades and includes the groundbreaking WASATCH THEATRE COMPANY productions of The Laramie Project, Caroline...or Change, Boys in the Band, and Love! Valor! Compassion! He is fresh off the stage from THE GRAND THEATRE'S summer production of Dreamgirls. He was also in THE GRAND'S production of Ms. Evers' Boys. Brien's stage credits also include MEANWHILE PARK - In Dogs We Trust; PLAN-B THEATER - ...of Color; PEOPLE PRODUCTIONS - Master Harold...and the Boys, Jitney, Home, A Soldier's Play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Exonerated, Let Me Down Easy; SALT LAKE ACTING COMPANY - Grant & Twain; BABCOCK THEATER, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH - A Raisin in the Sun; and the UNIVERSITY OF UTAH YOUTH THEATER - A Heart Divided. Professionally Keith is the Chief Operations Officer/Executive Vice President for a global professional association of business valuation, financial forensics, and financial litigation analysts.
Richard Scharine is a professor emeritus in the University of Utah Theatre Department. He has published five books and approximately 25 articles, and been named University Professor, and winner of the University Diversity Award, College of Fine Arts Faculty Excellence Award, and a Fulbright Senior Lectureship at the University of Gdansk in Poland. Dr. Scharine has directed 100 plays (including a 17 year stretch as Artistic Director for People Productions, Utah's first African American theatre) and acted in 100 plays, including performances in seven foreign countries.
But now he is old.
Philip holds a masters in Communication/Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
His academic work includes “The Tan Millennium, a screenplay for the ethnically ambiguous”. He is the main member of the new band, Groove Intruder, and is a SAG-eligible actor who has participated in a number of productions both screen and stage. As an academic and practitioner within the arts, he finds himself fond of Guy Debord and the Situationists International.
Liz Whittaker (she/they) is a certified intimacy director through IDC and has provided intimacy coordination and direction for over 40 productions in Utah. Her work is grounded in story and character, as well as mental health advocacy and social justice. She brings her experience as an actor, director, and educator into every project she does.
www.intimacywithliz.com
BRIEN KEITH's Salt Lake City stage credits spans two decades and includes the groundbreaking WASATCH THEATRE COMPANY productions of The Laramie Project, Caroline...or Change, Boys in the Band, and Love! Valor! Compassion! He is fresh off the stage from THE GRAND THEATRE'S summer production of Dreamgirls. He was also in THE GRAND'S production of Ms. Evers' Boys. Brien's stage credits also include MEANWHILE PARK - In Dogs We Trust; PLAN-B THEATER - ...of Color; PEOPLE PRODUCTIONS - Master Harold...and the Boys, Jitney, Home, A Soldier's Play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Exonerated, Let Me Down Easy; SALT LAKE ACTING COMPANY - Grant & Twain; BABCOCK THEATER, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH - A Raisin in the Sun; and the UNIVERSITY OF UTAH YOUTH THEATER - A Heart Divided. Professionally Keith is the Chief Operations Officer/Executive Vice President for a global professional association of business valuation, financial forensics, and financial litigation analysts.
Richard Scharine is a professor emeritus in the University of Utah Theatre Department. He has published five books and approximately 25 articles, and been named University Professor, and winner of the University Diversity Award, College of Fine Arts Faculty Excellence Award, and a Fulbright Senior Lectureship at the University of Gdansk in Poland. Dr. Scharine has directed 100 plays (including a 17 year stretch as Artistic Director for People Productions, Utah's first African American theatre) and acted in 100 plays, including performances in seven foreign countries.
But now he is old.
Philip holds a masters in Communication/Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
His academic work includes “The Tan Millennium, a screenplay for the ethnically ambiguous”. He is the main member of the new band, Groove Intruder, and is a SAG-eligible actor who has participated in a number of productions both screen and stage. As an academic and practitioner within the arts, he finds himself fond of Guy Debord and the Situationists International.
Liz Whittaker (she/they) is a certified intimacy director through IDC and has provided intimacy coordination and direction for over 40 productions in Utah. Her work is grounded in story and character, as well as mental health advocacy and social justice. She brings her experience as an actor, director, and educator into every project she does.
www.intimacywithliz.com