Tell It On Tuesday

Stories

• Julia Jackson, “Turbulence“
• Sandra Niman, “The Wife’s Story”
• Kikelomo Adedeji, “Tolula”
• Steve Budd, “Losing It”

Music

Vanessa Lowe, guitar and vocals
www.vanessalowe.com

Julia Jackson is a comedienne and solo artist known for her biting social commentary, as well as actually biting audience members from time to time. Her solo performance piece Turbulence was selected for the 2006 San Francisco Theatre Festival, and the 2006 San Francisco Solo Festival. Julia appeared in the film Some Prefer Cake, and has worked with Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, and Paul Mooney.

Sandra Niman is the director of an after school program for homeless and formerly homeless middle school students in San Francisco. She has taught storytelling at Dominican University and the UC Berkeley extension and appeared at many festivals and events including the last Bay Area Storytelling Festival.

Kikelomo Adedeji has appeared onstage in London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco performing in orignial musicals, plays and her own solo performance. Kike’s full-length solo play, Tolula, currently in development, is directed by David Ford. An excerpt was performed at The Marsh’s Festival of New Voices in June 2006.

Steve Budd recently relocated from Boston and hasn’t looked back. He’s an actor, improviser, standup comic and writer. He’s studied Solo Performance with David Ford at The Marsh. Locally he’s performed as Joey Bishop in The Tribute at the Post Street Theatre, at Spud’s and a number of other comedy clubs, and with Lila Theatre at the Off-Market.

Stories

• Sarah Abbey, “Cheating”
• Neshama Franklin, “The Hippie Dance of Love”
• Sharon Eberhardt, “Primitive Arts”
• Paul Sussman, “Tis A Gift”

Music

Ira Marlowe, guitar and vocals

Sarah Abbey. Cheating is a work in progress based on Sarah’s experience and fascination with the weight loss industry. Sarah began developing this piece in Charlie Varon’s Solo Performance Workshop at the Marsh Theater this past Spring. Sarah has a BA in Theater, acting from UC San Diego. After many years of performing other people’s work on stage, Sarah is finding the process of performing her own work to be exhilarating and terrifying.

Neshama Franklin is a storyteller at Fairfax Library and has her own radio show on Point Reyes Station’s KWMR. In her spare time, she dances, hikes, and hangs out with her three beloved grandchildren. Neshama shared a shorter story with us earlier in the year—during our post-intermission improv—and now she joins us, presenting a full work for Tell it on Tuesday.

Sharon Eberhardt’s full-length play, Becca and Heidi, had productions at The Exit theater in San Francisco, Alleyway Theater in Buffalo, NY, and a staged reading at New York Theatre Workshop. Her one-acts have been in BOA, Best of Playground, Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theater, And How! Theater, won a Moving Arts contest and finalist for the National Ten-Minute Play Contest. Primitive Arts marks her first time performing her own work. It is based on a true story.

Paul Sussman developed his approach to melodrama and farce through many years of work in fianancial management with Bay Area nonprofit organizations. He has written and performed a series of solo pieces over the past 6 years, seeing the world through the eyes of road-ragers, insects, cooks, Anabaptists, and others who persist in the search for meaning in a puzzling world.

Stories

• Zoe Sheli Sameth, “Safe Place”
• Arnie Warshaw, “Hey Santa—Gimme a Smoke”
• Jo Nemoyten, “The Real Cycle of Life with Sophie RainbowVision”
• Robert Pina, “Shadowland”

Music

The Swing Monkeys: Jeff Terlinger, violin; Kevin Smith, guitar, Betsy Stern, upright bass and vocals

Zoe Sheli Sameth, performance artist, writer and educator, shares her insider experiences of living in a war zone. “Sri Lanka Trilogy: Safe Place” wanders the maze of politics, relationships, and spiritual awakening. Zoe is a recipient of the Truman Scholarship, that funded the graduate studies inspiring her solo performance and youth work. Her support of continuing education for at-risk youth was honored as San Francisco’s Channel 5 “Hometown Hero.” Her website is www.zoeplanet.com.

Arnie Warshaw been doing theater off and on for about 18 years. He received an MFA in dramatic writing from Humboldt State University in 1994, and has previously performed in two of his own works: XTRA LARGE: A Journey Through the Layers of Fat and Buddha’s Secret Guide to Lower Cholesterol. Hey Santa—Gimme a Smoke was first performed in San Francisco last month as part of The Marsh theater’s Festival of New Voices.

Jo Nemoyten has been many things in her life: a musician, poet, stand-up comic, computer geek, and basically a very silly, smart and attractive person. She has been transforming into Sophie RainbowVision for over 12 years at various family gatherings, performance venues and cult meetings around the Bay Area. And now, Jo is bringing Sophie’s unique brand of middle-New-Aged Jewish Lady spiritual mishigas to Tell it on Tuesdays. Be prepared to get your aura cleaned and fluffed and your funny-bone relentlessly tickled.

Robert Pina was born in Texas and raised in Dos Palos, California. Robert discovered his passion for live performance at Stockton Civic Theatre. He later moved to San Francisco where he studied at the Jean Shelton Actor’s Lab with Jean Shelton, Christian Phillips and Keith Phillips. Robert has previously been seen in several Bay Area venues including Actors Theatre of San Francisco and the Marsh. Robert received the 2006 Theatre Bay Area CA$H grant award.

Stories

• Erica Lann-Clark,”Make it One For Baubo”
• Wayne Harris,“The May Day Parade”
• Todd Lejeune, “Don’t Let Go of the Potato”
• Rebecca Fisher, “The Magnificence of the Disaster”
• Ismail Azeem, “Rude Boy”

Music

The Oh Yea’s: original ragtime blues and jazz, Mario DeSio and Jared Karol

Erica Lann-Clark is a former New Yorker, a storyteller, an actor, an award-winning playwright, a published poet and an alternative healer. She’d thought she’d stay in Greenwich Village forever, but then the ’60’s happened and Erica joined the migration of those who came west to find Paradise. She’s also a Viennese Jew whose family escaped to Brooklyn’s cultural hotbed where she grew up listening to the tales of a vanished world.

Wayne Harris is an up and coming Bay Area storyteller. Coming off the success of his last play, Train Stories, Wayne is embarking on a new journey (“The May Day Parade”) in conjunction with director David Ford. Wayne is also the manager of an East Bay School District transportation department and in what little time is left he works with various youth organization.

Todd LeJeune was born and raised in New Iberia. He moved to San Francisco in 1995 with 500 bucks and a beat up truck in search of, well, he’s still trying to figure that out. Currently he is working on a one man show under the direction of David Ford at The Marsh. What influenced his work? Making lemonade out of lemons.

Rebecca Fisher works at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts as a teaching artist and arts administrator, as well as being the co-creator and co-producer of Tell it On Tuesday. She’s been developing “The Magnificence of the Disaster” with David Ford since January of 2004, performing early versions at the 2005 SF Fringe Festival and Marin Fringe Festival. She looking forward to it’s final birth at The Marsh’s New Works Festival in June.

Ismail Azeem, named Best Hip Hop Artist in the Bay by the East Bay Express and ranking 2nd Best Slam Poet in the nation, was chosen to perform for La Casita at the Lincoln Center in New York City. His one man show, Rude Boy, is being produced by The Marsh Theater in San Francisco and will debut this spring.

Stories

• Elliott Gittelsohn, “All Summer In A Day”
• Summer Shapiro, “Phyliss and Demophon”
• Ajina, “Me Shaped”
• Ruth Halpern, “Do you feel lucky tonight?”
• Frank Turco, “Homo Sapiens TODAY”

Music

Pleiades, a woman’s neo-celtic harp trio
Mirabelle Korn, Portia Diwa, and Liza Wallace

Elliott Gittelsohn, a recent graduate of South Burlington High School in Vermont, also attends The Clown Conservatory in San Francisco, and teaches circus and aerial arts to children at Splash Circus in Emeryville.

Summer Shapiro recently graduated form UCLA’s School of Drama and now attends (you guessed it!) The Clown Conservatory in San Francisco while working with Rhodessa Jones on her next Medea Project.

After honing his physical skills for 15 years in the martial arts, Ajina turned to performance through storytelling, and enjoys sharing a good tale with a willing audience. He also can be found plying his skills at the San Francisco Circus Center’s Clown Conservatory.

Frank Turco’s Sir Kensington Longbottom, inspired by the Commedia dell’arte, has been in the works for about a year and a half. Homo Sapiens TODAY (in various stages of development) has played in venues such as The Marsh, Traveling Jewish Theatre (as part of the furyfest), San Francisco’s Dark Room, and other reputable anthropological locations.

Ruth Halpern performs and teaches storytelling and writing workshops for all ages in schools, libraries, storytelling festivals, and river rafts. The LA Times calls her “a spellbinding master storyteller” and her recording, She Set Out to Seek Her Fortune: Tales of Adventures Heroines, was voted one of the top 25 children’s recordings of the past 25 years by the Parents’ Choice Foundation.

Stories

• Lauren Crux, “THREE”, an excerpt
• Kate Frankel, “The Learning Curve”
• Audrey Dundee Hannah, “Workhorse”
• Tim Ereneta, “Happy Endings are Overrated”

Music

Paul Bregman, piano

Lauren Crux was a late bloomer in the performance world. She started her performing career seven years ago, and gone on to write and perform four solo shows, which have been produced at various venues in northern and southern California. She received a Bay Areas Theatres CA$H grant for help in the development of her new solo show, THREE, a risky, irreverent, and curious look at the things that keep us awake at night. Her work is political, poetic, and abundant.

Kate Frankel has been storytelling all her life, and recently began work to recreate her gradual awareness of the social problems that led to the Civil Rights movement. Her story, “The Learning Curve,” draws on a San Francisco childhood with no awareness of discrimination, working in Harlem, a short trip to the South, and back to Berkeley in the ’50s before Berkeley was BERKELEY.

Audrey Dundee Hannah is an actor, writer, and teacher with a passion for Karl Marx and sock puppets. Luckily, that hasn’t stopped directors from casting her in film, on stage, for print modeling, and for voiceovers. She is a graduate of Stanford University’s Department of Drama.

Tim Ereneta’s varied performing career includes a stint as a singing dinosaur at Lawrence Hall of Science and originating roles in new works by MacArthur fellow Mary Zimmerman. For 10 years he was in the mainstage company of San Francisco’s BATS Improv troupe, making up stories spontaneously. Currently developing a repertoire of traditional tales to tell to adults, Tim is the recipient of the National Storytelling Network’s J.J. Reneaux Emerging Artist Award for 2006, given to an outstanding performer in the early stages of a storytelling career.

Stories

• Jessica Ferris, “Missing”
• Newt Bailey, “The Game”
• Ismail Azeem, “Rude Boy”

Music

Sarah Dominico and Foresta Sieck-Hill
Vocal harmony, guitar and percussion

Jessica Ferris is a teacher and performer whose physically-based work has been described as ” Sensitive, precise, pure, hilarious, riveting.”

Newt Bailey is British but has lived in the Bay Area for eight years. Currently he’s embarking on a new career in conflict resolution, mediation and coaching people in improving their communication skills. A math teacher in London in the nineties, he took the role of the “dame” in the traditional Christmas pantomime several years in a row. Last year he took a solo performance workshop with Charlie Varon and developed this piece, “The Game,” which received a great reception at the Marsh in San Francisco.

Ismail Azeem After being named Best Hip Hop Artist in the Bay by the East Bay Express and ranking 2nd Best Slam Poet in the nation, was chosen to perform for La Casita at the Lincoln Center in New York City. His one man show, Rude Boy, is being produced by The Marsh Theater in San Francisco and will debut in the spring of ’06.

Stories

• Greg Begin, “Ninety Nine and a Half”
• Kikelomo Adedeji, “Tolula”
• Jeanne Haynes, “The Stove is White”
• Fred Wickham, “Drop Your Pants”

Music

Miko Sloper
Drums, Winds and Strings

Greg Begin has been a professional storyteller since 1993. A graduate of the Dominican College Storytelling Certificate Program, Greg entertains audiences throughoutCalifornia and Oregon. Having been a musician for most of his life Greg frequently combines the two media. The stories Greg tells fall into categories as wide and varied as the art form itself, ranging from personal experience stories, folklore, legends, mythology, parables, fairytales, historical stories and just good old fashioned yarns.

Kikelomo Adedeji first came to solo performance developing pieces in classes with Bill Talen and Anne Galjour. She has performed three previous solo pieces in San Francisco and has performed in plays and original works at many theatres in the Bay Area including Theatre of Yugen’s Noh Space, Theatre Rhinoceros, Dean Lesher Center in Walnut Creek and the New Performance Gallery. Tolula is Kike’s first full-length work.

Jeanne Haynes believes that becoming a storyteller is the culmination of both her personal and professional life. A storytelling seminar 10 years ago, catapulted a new career performing in numerous venues including the Marsh Theatre, Bay Area Storytelling Festival, regional Tellabrations, and KPFA radio. She draws from her communications background as a media relations specialist and news reporter, to tell personal and traditional tales. A resident artist with Stagebridge Oakland and Young Audiences of Northern California, she has taught the art of storytelling to 1,120 students in 15 Bay Area Schools.

Fred Wickham: After 20 years of writing advertising, Fred tired of putting his best efforts into selling “overpriced crap” that can be purchased in any mall. In the mid-90s he began writing and performing satirical pieces—the kinds that can get a guy fired from an ad agency—and did.