Diabetic Drama: Participants Wanted

[Guest guest]

Please forward or repost

The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)

451 West Street *

New York, New York 10014

toplab@...

http://www.toplab.org

* travel directions appended below

The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)

founded in 1990

presents Diabetic Drama:

A Workshop Looking at the Interplay among Race, Class, Health and Diabetes

facilitated by Robbie McCauley

Saturday, February 2, 2008 at 7:00 pm

at the Brecht Forum

451 West Street

New York City

Are you concerned with the personal issues, as well as larger social

issues, around the growing numbers of people with diabetes?

Prior to her March 1 presentation of excerpts from her theater piece

Sugar, performance artist and teacher Robbie McCauley will hold workshops

open to anyone directly or indirectly living with diabetes, or who is

interested in diabetes--especially the race and class health care

disparities concerning that condition. She would like 12 to 15

participants willing to engage with " diabetic dramas " . Participants may be

asked to come back for one or more subsequent workshops (although

participation in the first workshop does not require one to attend

subsequent sessions). Each workshop will include story exchanges about all

types of diabetes, and dramatic exercises designed to share and obtain

information, and to break silences.

Then, on March 1 join us for a performance by Ms. McCauley of excerpts

from Sugar, her theater piece that looks at everything there is to see

about sugar, from slavery to colonialism to American mythologies to

diabetes.

Robbie McCauley has been an active presence in the American avant-garde

theater for three decades. One of the early cast members of Ntozake

Shange's *for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow

is enuf*, Ms. McCauley went on to write and perform regularly in cities

across the country, striving to facilitate dialogs on race between local

whites and blacks.

In the 1990s, she received both an OBIE Award (Best Play) and a New York

Dance and Performance (BESSIE) Award for Sally's Rape, which she wrote,

directed and performed.

A core member of the American Festival Project, she has practiced and

taught theater in several communities throughout the US and abroad. She is

anthologized in several books, including Extreme Exposure; Moon Marked and

Touched by Sun; and Performance and Cultural Politics, edited respectively

by Jo Bonney, Sydne Mahone, and Elin Diamond.

In 1998, her Buffalo Project was highlighted as one of the " the 51 (or so)

Greatest Avant-Garde Moments " by the Village Voice, a roster that included

work by artists such as Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, and Cage. Her

recent piece, Sugar, a work in progress, was presented at Ohio State

University in collaboration with several institutional departments and

organizations as well as with members of Columbus' Near East community.

Robbie McCauley is on the Performing Arts Department faculty at Emerson

College in Boston.

Admission by voluntary contribution

To pre-register, please send an email to toplab@... to let us know

that you will be attending. Include a short statement about your interest

in diabetes.

*****

Saturday, March 1 at 8:00 pm

Sugar

performed by Robbie McCauley

Award-winning actress Robbie McCauley returns to the Brecht Forum to

present excerpts from her performance piece Sugar, which looks at

everything there is to see about sugar, from slavery to colonialism to

American mythologies to diabetes. This presentation, an ongoing

work-in-progress, will incorporate some of the story exchanges told by

participants in the " Diabetic Drama " workshops facilitated by Ms. McCauley

in February at the Brecht Forum. Through the interweaving of stories,

images, facts and historical legends we will see that diabetes is not only

a medical issue but also one of race and class, and we will also see how

sugar is sometimes something that is very bittersweet.

Contribution--sliding scale: $6-$15

Free for Brecht Forum subscribers

*****

Other Upcoming Events

++February 15-17: De-masking Stereotypes--An Approach to Healing through

Storytelling; facilitated by Potri Ranka Manis

++March 8-9: Forum Theater, focusing on gender oppression; facilitators to

be announced

++March 29: Body Interviewing, Body Sculpting; workshop facilitated by

Gail Burton

++March 29: Along These Shores; performed by Gail Burton

++April 12-13: Advanced Techniques for Facilitating Image Theater;

facilitators to be announced

++May 12-17: Two workshops facilitated by Augusto Boal and n Boal

*****

Travel Directions

The Brecht Forum is at 451 West Street (West Side Highway) in Manhattan,

between Bank and Bethune Streets, 1-1/2 blocks north of West 11 Street.

IND Eighth Avenue A, C, or E train to 14 Street or BMT Canarsie L train to

8 Avenue (take a few minutes to look at " Life Underground " , Tom Otterness'

series of whimsical bronze sculptures scattered throughout both sections

of the station); walk down 8 Avenue to Bank Street, turn right, walk west

to West Street, turn right.

IRT Seventh Avenue 1, 2, or 3 train to 14 Street; get off at south end of

station, walk west on 12 Street to 8 Avenue, left to Bank Street, turn

right, walk west to West Street, turn right.

New Jersey PATH train to Street; walk north on Greenwich

Street to Bank Street, left to West Street, turn right.

#8 bus to West Street; walk up West Street to 451.

#11, #14A or #20 bus to Abingdon Square; walk west on Bank Street to West

Street, turn right.

#14D bus to 8 Avenue and 14 Street, walk down 8 Avenue to Bank Street,

turn right, walk west to West Street, turn right.