Tag: 2009

Stories

• Leta Bushyhead, “Shoes”
• Neshama Franklin, “Imelda of Bolinas”
• Wayne Harris, Excerpts from “Morning”
• Mark Kenward, “Nantucket, Part One”

Music

Rob Reich, accordion

Leta Bushyhead has always maintained that stories saved her life. In the belief that someone else might need stories just as much, she’s a regular storyteller at the Asian Art Museum.

Neshama Franklin has been telling stories for two decades. The library where she still works invited her to be a storytelling witch at Halloween and from that exhilarating experience, she found her true calling. She also has a radio show in West Marin where she reads whatever has seized her fancy—and she reads omnivorously.

Wayne Harris is currently the Transportation Coordinator for the Mt. Diablo Unified School District and has worked in the school bus industry for over 25 years working throughout California and Canada. In his other life, Wayne is a writer-actor-solo performer with 3 produced plays to his credit: Mother’s Milk, which enjoyed a lengthy run at the Marsh Theater; the highly aclaimed Train Stories, named as one of the best plays of 2003 by The Guardian newspaper; and his recent project, The May Day Parade, just finishing an 11 week run in San Francisco. His latest play, Morning, is about the school bus industry. www.waynethestoryteller.com

Mark Kenward is an eighteen-year solo performance veteran.  His work includes four autobiographical shows, an acclaimed one-man adaptation of Moby-Dick, and a commissioned monologue about California’s oldest family-owned winery.  He has performed his work in over thirty cities throughout North America including several runs at The Marsh Theatre in San Francisco. His website is markkenward.com

Stories

• Marissa Keltie in “Letters to Annie Ernaux” by Brenda Liebling-Goldberg
• Ryan O’Donnell in”Jock Stock”, by Danny Thanh Nguyen
• Jarrod Quon in “Thomas Killing His Brother” by David William Hill
• Casi Maggio in “The Auditorium” by diana senechal

Music

Tango No. 9
Classic tango standards, tango Nuevo, and contemporary compositions with a tango flavor.

Watchword Press is a nonprofit publishing house dedicated to producing, publishing, and disseminating cutting-edge literary works to a wide audience. We seek to publish emerging writers who are generally underrepresented by the larger, market-driven, commercial publishing houses. While we publish a variety of works, our main focuses are on emerging American writers and modern translations. Curator, Liz Lisle

Marissa Keltie graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Theatre Arts-Acting Option from CSUH, where she performed internationally as Viola in Twelfth Night for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  She has worked in various Bay Area theatres including Impact Theatre, Shotgun Players, Berkeley Playhouse, Northbay Shakespeare, TheatreWorks, and Magic Theatre.  She can currently be seen as Helena in Impact Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Ryan O’Donnell is an actor who has performed in Chicago, New York, and all over the Bay Area.  He is a member of both Shotgun Players and foolsFury Theatre Company, and was seen at Shotgun most recently in Ubu for President.  He also teaches acting with Berkeley Rep, and holds an MFA from DePaul. He is currently performing in Rabbit Hole with Town Hall Theatre.

Jarrod Quon has worked around the bay area for the past three years. He has worked with the Berkeley Opera, Shotgun Players, and 42nd St Moon. Most recently he was seen as Donalbain and Young Siward in Shotgun Players’ Macbeth and will be performing in Porchlight Theater’s Three Sisters

Casi Maggio is pleased to be joining this production. Casi graduated from Cal State East Bay with a BA in Theatre Arts. After CSUEB, she completed the 2 year conservatory program with PCPA. She performed internationally with CSUEB as Olivia in Twelfth Night at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Casi has performed with, The Willows (Annie, Evil Dead the Musical), Impact Theatre (Bottom, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Shotgun Players (Princess Buggerlas, Ubu For President), 42nd Street Moon, Active Arts, Berkeley Playhouse, Ohlone Summerfest, PCPA Theatrefest, TheatreWorks and Theatre Rhino.

Tango No. 9 — Catharine Clune on violin, Isabel Douglass on accordion and bandoneon, and Joshua Raoul Brody on piano playing classic tango standards, tango Nuevo by Astor Piazzolla, and contemporary compositions with a tango flavor.

Stories

• Michael Brown, “A Tale From Another Time”
• Catherine Goerz, “The Light That Never Goes Out”
• Jeanne Haynes, “The Stove Is White – Part IV”
• Ruth Fraser, “The Finer Points of Needlework”

Music

Stuart Rosh, vocals, guitar and harmonica

Michael Brown has been creating and performing original theater since the mid-Sixties, first in street theater in New York, followed by The Moving Men Theater Company in Berkeley. In the last ten years he has written and produced several full-length plays, including his current solo show, Memories and Dreams of the Twentieth Century: stories and a couple of songs, which just received a CA$H Grant award from Theatre Bay Area for expanded performances.

Catherine Goerz is a San Francisco-based writer and solo performer.She has been dressing up in outlandish costumes, speaking in strange accents and conducting social experiments since she was a little girl in New Jersey. Catherine has studied with Christine McHugh and Ann Randolph and is currently developing a new show under the guidance of Charlie Varon. She has performed at the Marsh Theater, in the Thursday Night Combo at EXIT Theater, and at the Noh Space at Theater of Yugen.

Jeanne Haynes, inspired by a Stagebridge storytelling seminar 12 years ago, abandoned her media consulting career of 30+ years to become a full time storyteller, Bay Area schools artist in residence, and teacher of Stagebridge’s adult classes. Originally created with David Ford at The Marsh, “The Stove” is a personal story about crossing the racial divide.  Now in its 4th year in the making, Haynes says, “My motivation to further develop this piece increases with each performance.” 

Born into a household rich in language, literature and oral history is it any wonder Ruth Fraser became a storyteller! For 12 years, she has told stories of wit and wisdom from around the world and her own adventurous life, sharing them in gatherings large and small, including parties, conferences and the Asian Art Museum. Offering workshops and coaching she shows others that they too have stories to offer the world.

Stuart Rosh, tells stories and happens to set them to music.  Elements of blues, R&B, jazz, and swing provide the backdrop to tales of grown men and women grappling with love, children, politics, and a funny and tragic world that sometimes just plain doesn’t make sense.