Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre

Acknowledgments

xxiii Acknowledgments The collaborative process requires us to rely on the kindness of strangers, friends, family, colleagues, and mentors. We began work on this volume in 2008. Along the way, many lovely people have given us their generous support. First, we would like to thank our spouses, Juhl (Norma) and Jim (Daniel), whose sacrifices often left them in a situation akin to widowhood . We are also grateful to the Kent State University administration and to the Fringe Benefits board of directors, staff, and community of contributors for their unstinting support. This book is an extension of Fringe Benefits’ many and varied Theatre for Social Justice Institutes. For their inspirational leadership and thoughtful collaboration as Institute co-facilitators, we would like to thank the following talented and delightful artists/activists/educators: Amanda Dunne Acevedo, Donald Amerson, Blaire Baron Larsen, Natalya Brusilovsky, Flint, Sara Monica Guerrero, Suzy Martinez, Bryan C. Moore, Cristina Nava Perez, Paula Weston Solano, Alex Suha, Jan Tattam, Lindsey Barlag Thornton, Lorely Trinidad, and especially Cynthia Ruffin (Lady Justice) for helping launch the Institute program. We are also greatly indebted to the 1,000-plus project partners and Institute participants, whose wise and creative contributions to the plays we collaboratively devised and to the Institute process are incalculable. And of course the international Institute program would not have been possible without the generous financial support of Fringe Benefits’ donors and princely multiyear grants from The Gill Foundation, Liberty Hill Foundation /Queer Youth Fund, the Mukti Fund, and the New Generations Program, funded by The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the American Theatre. From the moment we first envisioned this anthology through our proofingofthegalleys,numerouscolleaguesandfriends came tothe rescue with writing and editing assistance. We would like to acknowledge the work of a few of these angels. First and foremost, we want to express Acknowledgments xxiv ourdeepappreciationto thecontributing writersfortheirbrilliantessays and for their unbelievably gracious patience with our lengthy editorial process! It is also important to recognize Andrei Malikov, whose early, astute, and thorough editorial feedback helped enormously with getting the anthology on its feet. It also gives us great pleasure to thank the following individuals whose sage advice we enjoyed at many key points in the process: Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, Adina Avery-Grossman, Rosemarie K. Bank, Dalia Basiouny, John H. Bowles, Norma Bowles, Sr., Linda Frye Burnham, Flint, Suzi Hoffman-Kipp, Susan Jonas, Kathleen Juhl, Joshua Karton, David Miller, Cathy Plourde, Domnica Radulescu, Carol L. Robinson, Mark E. Rosenthal, Amy Sarno, Bernardo Solano, Paula Weston Solano, Christopher Swan, Jan Tattam, and Leigh Zona. Hearty thanks are also due to Kathleen McHugh and Chon Noriega for their winning book cover image concept; to Craig Collins and Cynthia Ruffin for a brilliant and fabulously fun photo shoot; to Sara Adelman , Chris Anthony, BJ Dodge, Michele Manzella, and Mark Seldis for their logistical support of the shoot; to Kathleen Juhl for finding the “ChalkDust” font; and to Mary Rohrer for putting it all together so beautifully. For further support zeroing in on the “perfect cover,” we are also tremendously grateful to the “sages” mentioned above, to all of the contributing writers, and to Jane Abernethy, Betty Bernhard, Sharon Green, Martin Harries, Virginia Jackson, Alma Martinez, Bill Rauch, Sonja Berggren Seaver, and Nancy Williams. Norma would like to express her appreciation to her Loyola Mary­­­ mount University students—Bianca, Caitlin, Cameron, Charles, Corinne, Emily, Joy, Kate, Kimi, Leslie, Natalie, Rebecca, and Thomas— for exploring Staging Social Justice as a required text in our Theatre and Social Change class. Their feedback, suggestions, and questions— along with their imaginative applications of the readings to a variety of community-based activist theatre projects—provided us with priceless guidance for fine-tuning the anthology. We would also like to thank Kristine Priddy, Southern Illinois University Press acquisitions editor, for her gentle and masterful management of the publication process. We are also happily beholden to the entire SIU Press team, including Bridget Brown, Wayne Larsen, Barb Martin, Hannah New, Lola Starck, and Paula Durbin-Westby, and especially Mary Rohrer, for her beautiful book design, and our delightful, judicious, and painstaking copy editor, Julie Bush. Most important, however, we would like to recognize the invaluable (and undying) support and encouragement of our mentor, Bob Schanke, without whom this book might not have been realized. Staging Social Justice ...