VDAY Jackson 2011 presents three benefit performances of "The Vagina Monologues"

VDAY JACKSON 2011 presents a benefit production of The Vagina Monologues

Sponsored by Riot Act Theatre Company and Off Square Theatre Company

April 12,13,14 at 7 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre in the Center for the Arts. VDAY Jackson will present a three-night benefit for VDAY International and valley non-profits working to support victims of domestic violence. This year's event includes three performances of Eve Ensler's award winning play, The Vagina Monologues, featuring an all-new cast. Tickets are available in advance at Valley Books and online at www.riotactinc.org for $12, and at the door the evening of the performance for $15.

As a special bonus this year after each evening's performance, the women of Jackson will be welcome to take the stage and share their story, through music, prose, original monologues or a simple shout out.

This is the third event presented by the woman of Teton Valley and we are so grateful to our communities for their support. We hope the community we join us again this year as we raise awareness about our endeavors to end violence against women and girls and money to support victims of domestic violence.

Jill Callaway, Jackson Community Theater, 307-690-8573, 307-733-7925, jill.callaway@gmail.com

Southern Poverty Law Center's Heidi Beirich addresses "Fighting Hate in America" April 2

From Lisa Icenogle, Casper College PIO:

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Heidi Beirich will present "Fighting Hate in America" on Saturday, April 2, at 7 p.m. in Durham Recital Hall in the Aley Fine Arts Center at Casper College.

Beirich, an expert on academic racism, nativist extremism, and the white supremacist fringe of the neo-Confederate movement, is the director of research in the center's hate and extremism department.

According to information provided by the SPLC, the center monitors hate groups and other extremists throughout the United States and exposes their activities to law enforcement agencies, the media and the public. The center is credited with crippling some of the nation's most notorious hate groups by suing them for murders and other violent acts committed by their members. Currently, as of this writing, there are 1,002 known hate groups operating across the country.

"After a brief decline in the mid 1990s hate groups have exploded, more than tripling in number since the mid 90s. In particular, the number of hate and extremist websites has grown. The SPLC is a highly regarded resource for government agencies as well as academics that study and seek to counter such groups, said Erich Frankland, Casper College political science instructor. "This presentation hopefully will draw students, members of the community, and others to learn more about this pressing issue," he added.

"I was moved to help bring in someone of Beirich's qualifications to speak to the community about hate crimes following the shootings in Tucson this past January. I believe that we need to work toward ending hate in this country," said Mariko Miller, Democratic Women's Forum representative.

A reception will follow Beirich's presentation, which is sponsored by the Democratic Women's Forum, the Casper College Political Science Department, and the Casper College Campus Security Office.

Both the presentation and reception are free and open to all.

FMI: Erich Frankland: 307-268-2490 and Mariko (Mako) Miller: 234-2317.

See the SPLC's "Hate Map" of the U.S. at http://splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map

Shepard Symposium marks 15th year with staged reading of "Beyond Brokeback"

The 15th Annual SHEPARD SYMPOSIUM ON SOCIAL JUSTICE COMMEMORATES the 5th ANNIVERSARY OF BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN WITH STAGED READING OF BEYOND BROKEBACK IN LARAMIE on April 8.

Assistant Professor John J. O'Hagan of The University of Wyoming Department of Theater and Dance will direct a one hour staged reading of Beyond Brokeback for the 15th Annual Shepard Symposium on Social Justice on Friday, April 8, 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. in the Union Ballroom of the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

Beyond Brokeback was adapted for the stage by Cody, Wyoming's, Gregory Hinton from the book Beyond Brokeback: Impact of a Film written by Members of the Ultimate Brokeback Forum, a web community which formed in the aftermath of the release of the award-winning film, Brokeback Mountain. The story was written by Wyoming author Annie Proulx. It was first published in The New Yorker and was in her book Close Range: Wyoming Stories.

The Forum, comprised of people from all walks of life -- country, city, gay, straight, men, women, young, old -- received over 500,000 posts in the first year. Excerpts of essays, poetry and music inspired by the film will be presented, including the song "Meet Me on the Mountain," written by noted composer Shawn Kirchner.

Beyond Brokeback was originally performed at the Autry National Center Museum of the American West in Los Angeles on December 11, 2010, in commemoration of the 5th Anniversary of Ang Lee's seminal western film, Brokeback Mountain.

The event is free but registration is required.

See http://www.shepardsymposium.org/ for more details.

Speakers for the symposium include Cherrie Moraga, John Corvino, Mary Cowhey, and A Slice of Rice, Frijoles, and Greens.

Zimbabwe performer Thomas Mapfumo visits UW for African Awareness Week

This comes from the University of Wyoming Office of Multicultural Affairs newsletter:

Wyoming African Student Association (WASA) will be celebrating African Awareness Week starting February 14 to February 19. It is a week long of events starting with helping you appreciate the ones you love on Valentine's Day, drumming in the Skyline Lounge on Wednesday between 11 and 1 pm, a symposium on Thursday with the theme "The role of women in African politics" with four professors on the panel and three WASA students in Yellowstone Ballroom from 6 to 8pm. Refreshments will be provided. On Saturday February 19 there will a play, dance and music performance by the legend Thomas Mapfumo from Zimbabwe in the Education Auditorium starting at 4 pm and this will be followed by dinner in Washakie from 7:15-8:30pm. A ticket is required for the dinner. Tickets will be given out at the Information desk in the union on Tuesday and Wednesday between 11 and 1pm (or until they run out). For any questions please feel free to email Darlington Darsaba at dsabasi@uwyo.edu.

Cleo Parker Robinson dancers, "The Race Show" and veterans' voices at UW MLK Days of Dialogue

Calendar of events for the 2011 Martin Luther King, Jr. "Days of Dialogue" at the University of Wyoming. This year's theme: "A decade of defining diversity through dialogue:"

Monday, January 17th
10:00 am - 4:00 pm: National Service Day, Laramie Plains Civic Center
- Restoration Projects

4:00 pm - Martin Luther King Jr. March and Supper, Albany County Courthouse
- The March will start at the Courthouse and continue to the Wyoming Union where soup will be served. WASA and Ballet 7220 will be preforming.

Tuesday, January 18th
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm - ECTL Book Discussion, "War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder" - Union East Ballroom.
Registration required. Click here.

12:15 pm - GLBTQ Cultural Panel Discussion, "Commonalities Across Culture: GLBTQ Life in Various Cultural Communities" - Union Family Room
* Pizza Provided *

7:00 pm - MLK/DOD Keynote Speaker, Common - Hip Hop artist and activist. Union Ballroom

Wednesday, January 19th
12:00 pm - B.E.A.U.T.Y. Panel Discussion, "Standing at the Crossroads of Identity" Union Family Room
* Pizza Provided *

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm - Panel Discussion "Interfaith Dialogue: Spritual Wholeness In a Fractured World" headed by Dr. Sally Palmer. Union Family Room

4:00 pm - Film Screening: "The Calling" Union Family Room

8:00 pm - Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Laramie Plains Civic Center
* sponsored by the Student Activities Council, transportation from and back to campus provided by SAFE RIDE. *

Thursday, January 20th
10:00 am - 11:30 am - Master Dance Class with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble - Union Ballroom
* No prior dance experience required.

4:00 pm - Ethnic Idenity and Voice in N*GGER WETB*CK CH*NK -A conversation with the actors - Union West Ballroom

7:30 pm - N*GGER WETB*CK CH*NK: The Race Show - A & S Auditorium
* UW Student Tickets $10.00
Non-Student Tickets $27.00 *

Friday, January 21st
1:00 - 3:00 pm - "How and Why We Are Different When We Come Back: A Veteran's Perspective" Union East Ballroom

2:00 pm - A Program with The Beehive Collective Union West Ballroom

6:30 pm, 9:00 pm, 11:30 pm - FNF Movie: "The Messenger" Union Family Room

9:00 pm - Dead Prez Concert, Union Ballroom
* Hip hop music, sponsored by Friday Night Fever *

Soulfege on stage at UW on Jan. 20

From a UW press release:

The hip-hop/reggae/funk underground sensation Soulfege returns to the University of Wyoming in Laramie on Wednesday, Jan. 20, at 8 p.m. in the Wyoming Union ballroom as a part of Martin Luther King Jr./Days of Dialogue activities.

The free performance features Johnathan Gramling and Derrick Ashong (aka DNA). The "brothers in song" met while attending Harvard University and soon realized they wanted to take their good education and make some cash, which led to the formation of the band Soulfege.

The Student Activities Council sponsors the performance. Individuals with disabilities needing accommodations contact the Campus Activities Center at (307) 766-6340.

Ilyasah Shabazz to deliver keynote address at MLK/DOD Jan. 22 at UW

From a UW press release:

Ilyasah Shabazz, an author, lecturer and daughter of slain Muslim leader Malcolm X, is the keynote speaker at the eighth annual Martin Luther King Jr. and Days of Dialogue (MLK/DOD) celebration Jan. 18-22, 7:30 a.m., at the University of Wyoming Union Ballroom.

"Poverty, Politics and Race" is the theme of this year's event. MLK/DOD renews UW's commitment to making campus a more welcoming and empowering place for people from different backgrounds, heritages, orientations or abilities. UW events celebrate the continuing impact of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and ideals.

Author of the book "Growing Up X," Shabazz is committed to developing educational programs that foster self-empowerment; expanding the role of government to teach individual responsibility for improving society; and capitalizing on the arts and entertainment to encourage the understanding of history, culture and self expression.

She is the third daughter of Malcolm X, an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, but his detractors accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy and violence. Malcolm X has been described as one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. Shabazz was only 2 years old and present when her father was assassinated in 1965 in New York.

Shabazz produces "The WAKE-UP Tour," her exclusive youth empowerment program designed to inspire young people to think and act critically to safeguard their futures. She also is corporation president and trustee of her parents' legacy, The Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center, Inc. at The Audubon, the place of her father's assassination.

Among other highlights of MLK/DOD are the annual MLK March and Willena Stanford Supper; panel and book discussions, observation of National Service Day, movies, art reception and entertainment.

For a full list of activities, visit the MLK/DOD Web site at http://www.mlkdod.com/mlk2010/or contact Kate Steiner at (307) 766-6790 or e-mail ksteiner@uwyo.edu.

Call for proposals: Shepard Symposium on Social Justice at UW

The 14th Annual Shepard Symposium on Social Justice is seeking proposals for its gathering on the theme of "environmental justice" on April 7-9, 2010, at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

Call for proposals: Download PDF

Submit Proposals (deadline January 13, 2010): Online Submission

Symposium registration begins January 11, 2010.

Record an interview for StoryCorps' National Day of Listening on Nov. 27

This comes from Wyoming Public Radio:

Wyoming Public Radio encourages listeners to record an interview with a loved one for StoryCorps’ second annual National Day of Listening on November 27, 2009.

On the day after Thanksgiving, November 27, 2009, Wyoming Public Radio and StoryCorps are asking all Americans to start a new holiday tradition: Set aside one hour to interview a friend, a loved one, or someone in their community about his or her life.

The process is simple: select an interview partner, create a question list, and sit down to record a meaningful conversation. StoryCorps has created a free Do-It-Yourself (DIY) interview guide with step-by-step interview instructions, equipment recommendations, and sample questions available online at nationaldayoflistening.org.

Sponsored by Corporation for National & Community Service, American Library Association, National Public Radio and Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

"The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, An Epilogue" at Center Theatre in Jackson w/update on Laramie presentation

From the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts web site:

Dancers' Workshop and Off Square Theatre Company partake in an historic event, joining hundreds of groups in all 50 states and other nations in presenting "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, An Epilogue" to raise awareness for the need to accept diversity and combat hate-related crimes.

Bob Berky directs a staged reading of this update of the Matthew Shepard murder at the Center for the Arts Center Theatre, 265 S. Cache, Jackson, at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 12. The event is free and open to the public.

Interested thespians, activists, community members, and those who just want to be involved are invited to be readers of "The Laramie Project – 10 Years Later." No prior acting experience needed, and the memorization of lines will not be necessary, as the script will be present on stage. There will be two rehearsals prior to the performance.

In 1998, Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student, was beaten and murdered on a fencepost in Laramie by two men who lured him from a bar earlier that evening. A month later, Moises Kaufman and other writers for the Tectonic Theater Project came to Laramie to interview residents and those connected to the incident. Those interviews became a play that was performed in thousands of theaters and was made into an HBO movie.

Ten years later (June 2008), Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie to explore the impact that Matthew Shepard’s death has had on the community, and to interview the same residents, including Aaron McKinney, one of Shepard’s murderers, who is serving a life sentence for the crime. These interviews have been created as an epilogue to the original play. The 80-minute play will be performed globally on Oct. 12.

For more details or to sign up to read, contact Bob Berky at bberky@wyoming.com or Alissa Davies at 733-6398.

Director Moises Kaufman said this in a recent New York Times article:

In holding multiple premieres of the play on the same night, Mr. Kaufman said he was taking a page from the Federal Theater Project, the New Deal program that often opened plays in a multitude of cities on the same night.

“We’re also taking advantage of contemporary technology so that at the New York performance we’ll be connected to the other productions across the nation via the Internet,” Mr. Kaufman said. “We’re giving each production a video recorder so that they can document the event, and we’ll be answering questions live from across the country,” after the performances on Oct. 12.

For a full list of performance venues for "The Laramie Project -- 10 Years Later," go to http://www.laramieproject.org/reading.php. As of today, the Jackson event is the only one scheduled for Wyoming.

UPDATE: Oct. 12 presentation in Laramie

THE LARAMIE PROJECT: TEN YEARS LATER: AN EPILOGUE
By Moises Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris, and Stephen Belber.
October 12, 7:30 p.m., FREE! Arts & Sciences Auditorium, University of Wyoming, Laramie
See the August 2009 press release from The Tectonic Theater Project here.
See the September 29, 2009 press release from the AP here.
This event is FREE and the public is cordially invited.

From one witch trial to another: Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" at UW

From a UW press release:

The University of Wyoming Department of Theatre and Dance opens the 2009-2010 production season with Arthur Miller's "The Crucible."

Performances can be seen Sept. 29-Oct. 3 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 4 at 2 p.m. on the Fine Arts Main Stage. Tickets cost $14 for the public, $11 for senior citizens and $7 for students. For tickets and information call (307) 766-6666 or visit www.uwyo.edu/finearts.

Directed by assistant professor John O'Hagan, "The Crucible" is both a historical play and timely allegory of political and religious intolerance. Based on actual people and events, the play is a portrait of the mass hysteria that led to the witch-hunts and trials in 17th century Salem, Mass.

"The Crucible" also examines human nature and the extremes to which individuals will go to enforce social norms and beliefs.

"I was drawn to the play because of its emotionally powerful content and its universality in depicting the conflicts between belief and reality and the individual and society," says O'Hagan. "This is an incredibly moving story about what happens when a community breaks charity with itself."

Miller wrote "The Crucible" in response to Senator McCarthy's "House Un-American Activities Committee" hearings in the 1950s and the anti-Communist hysteria that gripped the nation. Miller himself was later questioned by the committee and found in contempt of Congress for failing to identify other potential Communist sympathizers.

A pre-show panel discussion led by UW faculty members Peter Parolin, Bob Torrey, Jeannie Holland and Kent Drummond will be held Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 6:30 p.m. on the Fine Arts Main Stage. The discussion will center on the historical situation of "The Crucible," its use as a metaphor for the McCarthy era and its lasting influence on literature and dramatic literature. The discussion is free and open to the public.