NARAL Pro-Choice New York- Fundraising Phone Bank

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NARAL Pro-Choice New York
470 Park Avenue South, 7th Floor

Please join for a fundraising phone bank to benefit our Political
Action Committee. We need your help! In the upcoming elections, we
need to elect only those candidates who have made a clear commitment
to standing up for the women and families of this state and the values
we hold dear. With your help, we can have the resources necessary to
make real pro-choice political change this fall.


Training and pizza dinner will be provided.

To RSVP, please contact Lalena at lhoward@prochoiceny.org or 646-520-3506

Sign the Reproductive Health Act petition on-line!:

http://www.prochoiceny.org/getinvolved/rhapetition.shtml

Category: Blog, Co-Sponsored Event, Events /

PShiftTV ANNOUNCEMENT- Calling all Video Editors!

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Hey guys!

PShiftTV is looking for a Video Editor Intern or Volunteer to help edit footage from recent events. This is a great opportunity to build your reel, work with professionals in the media industry, and support a non-profit.

We are looking for a student ideally, or someone recently graduated, who has a strong interest in any of the following: Women’s Studies, Feminism, Sociology, Media Production, or Non Profit Publicity.

Candidate must:
-have their own editing equipment (FCP, iMovie, whatever works)
-be able to pick up/drop off footage in the NYC/Brooklyn area

Please email resume and cover letter stating interest to RMarcus@paradigmshiftnyc.com.

This is an unpaid gig, but a great chance to work with good people and for a good cause! We can provide excellent networking opportunities.

Become part of our team!

Sincerely,

Becca Marcus
Digital Media Specialist
Paradigm Shift TV

Category: PShiftTV /

Pipeline Women: Cindy Gallop

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Pipeline is an exciting new startup whose mission is to ensure that every woman achieves her potential as an innovator. They produce a Woman Innovator series, a media campaign to increases the visibility of fascinating women innovators. Check it out!

Pipeline’s Blog

Pipeline’s latest video features an interview with Cindy Gallop, brand innovator and entrepreneur, who founded: ifwerantheworld.com and makelovenotporn.com

[vimeo 13491083]

Category: PShiftTV /

No Girls Allowed: File Sharing Culture and BitTorrent

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Our buddy Anita over at FeministFrequency.com has another great video up about how women are systematically left out of techno-geek culture.

Created for and originally posted at Bitch Magazine’s Mad World Virtual Symposium on July 20th, 2010

“It’s a boys club that’s reinforced socially and culturally. It creates a space that is so undesirable for women to be in that they don’t want to or they aren’t given the opportunity to participate.”

Check it out!

[youtube yL0aGv45vGM]

Category: PShiftTV /

A Conversation with Maria-Anna Foohs, Publisher/Editor of “Wings and Dreams: 4 Elements of a New Feminism”

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by Shawnta Smith, Lesbian Librarian

Feminism in a global context.

This is the definition I would give to the new publication, mainly anthology, soon to be primary source material text, Wings and Dreams: 4 Elements of a New Feminism, published by Maria-Anna Foohs, also founder of Sophia Sirius Publishing of Germany.

Maria-Anna has given Paradigm Shift the opportunity to review her book, and pick her brain about the intricacies of newness: the “new feminism” as well as the new methods of using social networking as a publishing tool.  Of course, as your lesbian librarian, I couldn’t resist the small subtleties of lesbianism in her new contexts.  At the end of our 46:16 minute cell phone interview (that Maria-Anna said was too short), I learned something new about how we NYC feminists, lesbians, and non-feminists still hoard in our political bubble. And unlike our urges to pop or expand, Foohs is neither interested nor driven by our radical needs to redefine.  Instead, she is driven by the spaces where compassion and reason intertwine.  Please allow me to introduce you to this exclusive conversation about “New Feminism”, with Maria-Anna Foohs.

SHAWNTA: Now, for my first question, how would you define feminism?

MARIA: Feminism is the fight to have equal rights.  I think this is a very general perspective of feminism.  But it is the basic definition, that you fight for equal rights, whatever and wherever you are in the world.

SHAWNTA: Wings & Dreams…Why did you choose to name this anthology by this title?

MARIA: Well, I think the metaphor of the wings can be used as a means of transport to get to our personal dreams.  But for more practical reasons, my colleague, Bettina Schmitz is a philosopher and is a part of the International Association of Women Philosophers.  Check out their website: www.iaph-philo.org.  They run a conference every two years.  Dreams with Wings was the topic of the July 2008 exhibition at Ewha Women’s University, Seoul/Korea.  I thought it was a compelling attitude, and a beautiful title.

SHAWNTA: The essays in this anthology are all from the International Association of Women Philosophers’ conferences.  What is your relationship to the International Association of Women Philosophers?

MARIA: I have no personal association with the organization except for my friendships with the authors.  8 years ago I joined the Würzburg Academic Women’s Club (WAi) which was lead by Bettina Schmitz who was teaching a “Chrysothemis” course at the University of Würzburg about feminist philosophy. I wanted to support them and their work, and wanted to get a bigger audience for their ideas.

SHAWNTA: Tell us about your choice and process to publish with a Community Commons license and then with Sophia Sirius Publishing.

MARIA: Sophia Sirus is my company, it is my pseudonym.  The Commons idea is what came about when I started working with my publicist, Patrick Dacre.  Sophia Sirius is my way of empowering women.  We do not take any rights away from the author; we do not want to restrict women.

SHAWNTA: And what makes your publishing model different from traditional publishing?

MARIA:  Each book that is going to be published, the author can choose an organization that they would like to support, and 33% of Sophia Sirius profits will go to that organization.  Wings & Dreams will go to the International Association of Women Philosophers, for example.  Authors can choose to do what they like with their proceeds.  I will help other women to publish their books, as well as promote their projects.

SHAWNTA: WOW!  Are you currently seeking any writers, or women interested in publishing?

MARIA: We started connecting with some people, and are open to additional requests and book ideas.  A woman who is running two schools in India is a prospect.  She teaches English and provides computer technology training.  Those women in the school would like to publish their own stories and 33% of proceeds will go back to the school.  Another is a group of Afghan women who are writing online and we are hoping that they will come forward and seek to publish.  In Germany, there is an organization called Wildwasser (www.wildwasserwuerzburg.de) that has an online assistance program for women who are experiencing violence.  They go out to schools and teach girls how to handle violence.  The issue of rape also comes up.  Their words focus on sexual education, and have already spread widely with a large following.  We’d like to promote these types of groups through their writing.

SHAWNTA: Let’s get back to Wings & Dreams.  Who is your intended audience?

MARIA: It is published in both German and English so that we can reach a wider audience.  We thought about women all over Europe.  One of the authors is Spanish, also the North American market can handle an English text.  We would like to publish in more languages.  Russian, Polish Japanese, Chinese, etc.   We would like to address Afghan women and Indian women as well and we can do it online.  Online at www.sophiasirius.net, there is a download for a preview, so that anyone can see it if they have access to a computer.  Indian-American women can reach out to their relatives in India.  I would also like to go to Arabic women. It seems that they do not have the rights that feminism fights for.  We are used to our small worlds in the US and in Europe, but women need help and encouragement worldwide, there is a lot to do there. Wings & Dreams is a step in that direction.

SHAWNTA: Although you include a transnational perspective, how do you see lesbians in the context of your definition of feminism?  How are lesbians to embrace Wings & Dreams?

MARIA: Lesbians have not been our target market, yet, I can see that they are included as well.  New Feminism agrees that everyone has the right to choose their lifestyles, because they can choose their own rights, and their own ways of living.  And still, we must all find a way to communicate with men. Communicating with men should be less of a fight.  The problem can only be solved by working together.  Men can profit from this new feminism.  They can each put forward their ideas of how working with the genders can be reached.  By reaching an agreement, there is no need of fighting.  We can accept the other person’s choice.  In order to get there, we have to talk and listen to each other.

SHAWNTA: Yes, but back to lesbians…

MARIA: As for the Lesbian aspect -I honestly haven’t thought about this before.  In Germany, there are already equal rights for lesbians.  We have a federal right for same-sex marriages.  In Germany, that problem has been solved.  Everyone in Germany can go to a City Hall and get married to the person of his choice.  We are still a Christian country.  However, people who talk about the religion, they are not missionaries.  Choice is open for lesbians unlike in the United States.

I appreciated the perspective of someone who could live in a world where lesbianism was a non-issue. Even though I knew that a German lesbian would probably have more to say, I still wanted to submerge myself in her world of possibility.

MARIA: So, what was your favorite part of the book?

I answered her in an honest way.  In a way that made me feel open to say more than just politics.

SHAWNTA: Well, I loved that you had a Korean woman writer.   And her words began in a yard, with an animal, focusing on the domesticity of gender…how the one who farms the cow and the one who sees a black cat, or a bird operates from a different perspective than the academic or politician.

This author spoke about how the feminism that some have learned seems foreign to those of us who speak in earth-words, and embrace emotions as spirit.  I am Jamaican and Guatemalan, and I still, to this day, do not call myself a feminist.  These words are foreign to me, and hold little value to my tangible world.

MARIA: Yes.  HYUN-KYOUNG SHIN’s piece, “The Singing of a Shaman” I believe is a great way to notice how different people connect, by spending time in another world.  I am still a member and host for a peace organization called SERVAS – which is a NGO registered with the United Nations, and they allow guests to share the lives of the hosts in a hospitality program.  Participants live with another culture, from another country, in order to get to know these cultures.  Through this experience, I stayed with families throughout the world.  I realized we all want to have a life where we can choose what we want – security, family, choice.  Sometimes I would arrive like with a family in Japan, and after having talked to the woman for an hour or two….we were friends, as if we had known each other for a long time.

My idea came from this experience, that we have to communicate, and realize we all have the same aim.  My book wants to start that process.  Are we communicating, getting people together…part of it is fighting for our rights.  But more of it is reconciling.  We should tolerate and accept people and their ideas.

Thus we ended our conversation.  And I sat in silence for a while, pondering, do we maintain a definition of feminism that involves reconciliation and compassion?

For more information on “Wings and Dreams: 4 Elements of a New Feminism”

http://anewfeminismcommunity.ning.com

We are pleased to make available, at no charge, this online Readers’ Edition of Wings & Dreams: 4 Elements of a New Feminism, courtesy of Google Books Digital Reader Technology.

Category: Blog /

SHULIE: A FILM BY ELISABETH SUBRIN, OPENS AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM SEPTEMBER 12

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NEW YORK, NY – The Jewish Museum will present Shulie: A Film by Elisabeth Subrin from September 12, 2010 through January 30, 2011 in the Museum’s Barbara and E. Robert Goodkind Media Center. Shulie (1997) is a shot-by-shot remake of a little-known documentary about 1960s feminist Shulamith Firestone. Author of the treatise The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, Firestone was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1967 when four male directors selected her as a subject for a film about the so-called Now Generation. Shot in the style of direct cinema, the original Shulie featured Firestone discussing religion, the limitations of motherhood, and racial and class issues in the workplace. Thirty years later, Elisabeth Subrin recreated Shulie using actors in many of the original locations. The resulting film is a nostalgic and somewhat cynical reflection on the legacy of second-wave feminism. Subrin writes, “in the compulsion to remake, to produce a fake document, to repeat a specific experience I never actually had, what I have offered up is the performance of a resonant, repetitive, emotional trauma that has yet to be healed.” The exhibition also includes four new digital photographs of enlarged film stills from Shulie, two of which will be shown for the first time. Shulie is presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism.

Elisabeth Subrin’s award-winning work has screened widely in the US and abroad, including in solo shows at P.S.1, The Museum of Modern Art, The Vienna International Film Festival, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Harvard Film Archives and The San Francisco Cinematheque; and in group shows and festivals at The Whitney Biennial, The Guggenheim Museum, The Walker Art Center, The Wexner Center for the Arts, The New York Film Festival, and The Rotterdam International Film Festival. She has received grants and fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Annenberg, and The Creative Capital Foundations, and participated in the Sundance Institute Screenwriting and Directing Fellowships with her first feature-length narrative film, in development with Forensic Films in New York. She has received film commissions from The MacDowell Colony and The Danish Arts Council for recent projects, The Caretakers and Sweet Ruin. A solo exhibition curated by Lia Gangitano will take place at PARTICIPANT, INC. in New York in 2011. She is currently Assistant Professor of Film and Media Art at Temple University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Located on the third floor of The Jewish Museum, the Goodkind Media Center houses a digital library of radio and television programs from the Museum’s National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting (NJAB). It also features a changing exhibition space dedicated to video and new media. Using computer workstations, visitors are able to search material by keyword and by categories such as art, comedy, drama, news, music, kids, Israel, and the Holocaust.

Media programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.

About the National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting

The National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting, founded in 1981 in association with the Charles H. Revson Foundation, is the largest and most comprehensive body of broadcast materials on 20th century Jewish culture in the United States. With a mission to collect, preserve and exhibit television and radio programs related to the Jewish experience, the NJAB is an important educational resource for critical examination of how Jews have been portrayed and portray themselves, and how the mass media has addressed issues of ethnicity and diversity. Its collection is comprised of 4,300 broadcast and cable television and radio programs.

About The Jewish Museum

Widely admired for its exhibitions and educational programs that inspire people of all backgrounds, The Jewish Museum is the preeminent United States institution exploring the intersection of 4,000 years of art and Jewish culture. The Jewish Museum was established in 1904, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial art objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection. Today, the Museum maintains an important collection of 26,000 objects—paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, archaeological artifacts, ceremonial objects, and broadcast media.

General Information

Museum hours are Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, 11am to 5:45pm; Thursday, 11am to 8pm; and Friday, 11am to 4pm. Museum admission is $12.00 for adults, $10.00 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, free for children under 12 and Jewish Museum members. Admission is free on Saturdays. For general information on The Jewish Museum, the public may visit the Museum’s Web site at http://www.thejewishmuseum.org or call 212.423.3200. The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan.

Category: Blog, Co-Sponsored Event, Events /

Monster – a poem by Cristina Dominguez

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I’m learning more and more
the space between each l e t t e r
now further apart with you,
now that I’m a part of you,
they aren’t even near
they can’t touch the meaning
inside and around them

they are leaning
trying to see
to understand
to hear in their own echo
the purpose,
the beautiful curse,
that found them first…

usually the story starts
and finds the beauty,
lying in the darkness,
the kind that no one saw
there all along
the hidden familiar
the meant to be
created reality
a meaningless song
that only has meaning
because it has been repeated
for far too long

those stories miss
the perfections in the flaws,
the inflections of light
that live in a darkness
so dense
so permanent in presence
so pregnant with heart-wrenching potential
that sight can’t find them,
our eyes can’t see them,
only once
they give up trying,
close and closed
they open up,
they erupt
and cry
tears breaking
their seals
losing
and lost again

what no one knows
you’ll learn there
thick
true
black
light
never
lies
white lies
fairy tales
are blinding
and binding

the monster
is a princess
who thinks
who feels
who wants

the monster
is the princess
that is real

the webs we weave
don’t tap into
a tapestry of harmony

but tangled
mangled
contorted and tortured
I’m wrapped
in the craft
in the work
that taught me my worth

I’m sleeping
in the clouds
that clear my mind

The nightmare
that we share
is a dream
in the darkness
not ready
to be seen

won’t regret
won’t white wash
sugar coat
or paint over
the pain I feel
everyday
the pain
the stir

inside
behind my eyes
behind my lies
the intensity
that keeps me
from staying
in line

stray with me
fall into the spaces
between
the cracks
and ruins
where what is right
is what feels right

tread in trouble
with me
be buried
alive
in the art
of my arteries

I’m the dragon that guards
the haunted castle
because I know
how the light
bakes
and mistakes
the shapes
that lay
the mystery

warm
wet
not ready yet
wait with me
take me back
to where
I never knew
I could start again
to where
I don’t
have to begin

Nothing about
the darkness
goes against
my will

Terror is
the way
they keep you still

I’m
mutating
and
you’re circulating
captivating
and cultivating
we’re waiting…

happily ever after
means there is a place
where risk and danger
are endangered
where life becomes monotony

the complexity
and endlessness of the dark
unrests me

I forever want to be
the monster
they make of me

Category: Blog, Cristina Dominguez /

PARADIGM SHIFT NYC Presents: BODY TYPED Short Films On Perfection – Screening & Discussion featuring JESSE EPSTEIN, Sundance award-winning Filmmaker

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PARADIGM SHIFT: NYC’S FEMINIST COMMUNITY Proudly Presents

BODY TYPED short films on perfection
Screening & Discussion Featuring

JESSE EPSTEIN, Sundance award-winning Filmmaker

part of The Tank’s “Liberal Arts Summer School” series

BODY TYPED is a series of short films that use humor to raise serious concerns about the marketplace of commercial illusion and unrealizable standards of physical perfection.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18th at 6:30 pm
Just outside the Feminist District
The Tank- 354 West 45th Street (between 8th & 9th Ave.)
Subway: A,C,E to 42nd Street/Times Square

Cost: $12 students/ pre-paid, $15 at door
BUY TICKETS NOW- LIMITED SEATING:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/117245

Facebook invite: http://bit.ly/cofvXX

WET DREAMS AND FALSE IMAGES
When Dee-Dee the barber learns about the art of photo-retouching, he may never look at his “wall of beauty” the same way again.
Short Subject Jury Award, 2004 Sundance Film Festival

THE GUARANTEE
A dancer’s hilarious story about his prominent nose and the effect if has on his career.
Best Short Film, 2007 Newport International Film Festival

34x25x36
A look at mannequins, religion, and perfection.
SXSW, Full Frame, True/False, National PBS Broadcast on POV

This project is being executive produced by Judith Helfand, Wendy Ettinger, Julie Parker Benello
Produced in association with Chicken & Egg Pictures and The Fledgling Fund

JESSE EPSTEIN:
http://www.JesseDocs.com
http://www.newday.com/films/Body_Typed.html
Jesse grew up in Boston, Mass. She received an MA in documentary film from NYU. Jesse was recently selected for “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine. She distributes films through New Day Films, and edits the Shooting People daily bulletin.

PARTNERS INCLUDE:

Legendary Women, Inc
Manhattan Young Democrats
New York Women in Film and Television
NOW NYS Young Feminist Task Force
RippleEffectArtists.org
Sideshow: The Queer Literary Carnival
Soapbox Inc.
The Women’s Mosaic
The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership
Trixie Films
Women’s Caucus for Art
Women’s Media Center
Women’s Sexuality Empowerment Apprenticeship

Photography by Amy Mittens: amittensphoto@gmail.com

PARTNERS WELCOME:
Join as a supporting organization
Subject Line: 8/18 Partner
Email: JWeis@paradigmshiftnyc.com

Time Out NY’s CRITICS’ PICK!!  Paradigm Shift’s 8th honor!
http://newyork.timeout.com/events/own-this-city/353910/body-typed

Category: Events, Paradigm Shift Event / Tags: , , ,

Rivers of Honey and Herstory: How Lesbians of Color are Underwritten & Where We Are Today

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By Shawn(ta) Smith, Your Lesbian Librarian

*One day they will talk story about you
How you would dip the tips of your breast
in the soft mouth of a running brook
leave your fingerprints on the gray skull of a rock

Colored dykes sing, dance, and organize. But how would we know these things if in fact, it’s never written down, documented, showcased, or broadcast? In this historically relevant year for lesbian culture, the Lesbian Herstory Archives celebrates her 35th year, and the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies begins it’s year of memory in its series of Lesbians in the 70s programming. The GLBT Historical society has recent newsworthy publication of the Black Lesbian Herstorical exhibit called “Keepin’ On”, even though the exhibit lives at and has always been housed in its Brooklyn home at the Lesbian Herstory Archives (we’ll discuss the problematic at a later date). Where are the lesbians of color in the schema of a lesbian herstory? And how do organizations tend to monopolize on this ever-unanswered question?

How you would laugh
mouth open, legs spread to the sky
filling your belly with sun

Furthermore, where is she today? Where are our mocha brilliant sistahs? Our curry spiced lovers? Our loud-mouthed, and silent daughters? I ask, if a lesbian of color has an orgasm, but no one is there to celebrate, is it revolutionary?

“Daughter of Oshun”
they will say
you somersaulted over clouds
sweet curves of brown
swayed oceans with your hips

In the 30th year anniversary of the WOW Cafe Theater, the organizing of many dyke artists don’t bother to ask the question. Instead we perform, produce, and direct multiple orgasms, and the people come. During most of the planning, the question for where lesbians of color fit into the picture are abound. Except, these questions are asked only of the outsiders, for, those of us lesbians of color doing the work know that we had and are always, at the table. We are not missing. No one has lost us. We are NOT underrepresented. HERE I AM! Often, lesbians of color are erased from herstory yet, have always been active, present, and instrumental in the events that have lead us afloat.

“Sister of Oya”
they will say
you carried a sword between your teeth
and the four winds in your hair
made armies fall with your battle cry
Wove melodies together with time

One prominent example of lesbian of color work that exists today, right now, as in, on New Years Eve, and New Years day, and every first Friday of the month this year is the newly designated mecca of lesbian of color artists: Rivers of Honey, the women and trans artist of color Cabaret Theater held at the WOW Cafe Theater.

They will call you
Holy woman, singer, warrior, conjurer, dancer, poet, lover
Your names will be held sacred
Hanifah, Jaz, Ganessa, Chaney, Ashley, Nicki

Founded in 1999 by a group of women artists/activists (namely Susanna Cook and Hanifah Walidah) as a space that showcases and supports the art of women, then eventually trans, artists of color. Over the years, ROH has been promoted, managed, supported and passed down to many amazing women who have donated their time, talent and abilities to empower colored/brown/black/yellow/red women through the performing and visual arts and create a safe space for women to show their work and realize their creative visions. Recently, there have been consistent sold out shows. The June 2009 show, where Punk Rock artist, Tamar Kali, Spoken Word poet, Staceyann Chin, Urban Bush Women Dancer, Maria Bauman, Fillmmaker Ignacio Rivera, Puppetry Theater Showcase, the Sanctuary Collective, Blues singer, Chaney Sims, and creator of Cabaret Cataplexy, Ashley Brockington led a completely queer showcase having to turn away over 100 audience members due to overcrowding. “The line went around 2nd Avenue!” said long-time doorwoman, lesbian barber, and visual artist, Jaz Cruz. Rivers is the next best thing. Always women, sometimes trans, and mainly queer, the production is run by a dedicated collective of queer women of color.

Your names will be held sacred
because you carved out of bone
out of blood, movement and song
a place for your tribe to grow.

Meeting at each other’s houses, along with the WOW Cafe Theater’s Tuesday night weekly meetings, this power troupe has resounded strong into the New Year with visual art, performance, dance, and audience sex games like truth or dare where winners received Babeland toys and beer. The next show is being held at the WOW Cafe Theater. Tickets are sold at the door. $10 (more if/less if) gets you the women-seeking-women experience that you knew still and always existed.

Visit Rivers of Honey on Facebook

Poem: Free Women
*Dedicated to the foremothers of Rivers of Honey
– by collective member Cristina Izaguirre

Pictures by Rivers of Honey Collective Members: BJ Watkins and Shauntée Henry (pride pic)

Category: Uncategorized /

Premiere Stages 2010 Season at Kean University: Jaguars, Truth-seekers and Whole Foods

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Premiere Stages at Kean University (Union, NJ) presents a dynamic mix of original plays. The professional theatre’s season includes a powerful new drama, an important new play in a co-production with Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, and the development of a speedy new comedy. Family-friendly musical theatre productions and special initiatives for children and students make the season enjoyable for all audiences.

The Good Counselor is Kathryn Grant’s drama about a chosen son’s quest for truth. A bright, young public defender struggles to represent two neglectful mothers, one his client, the other his own. A thought-provoking and beautifully written new play, The Good Counselor literally prompts the audience to serve as the jury in determining what it means to be a good parent. This Premiere Stages Festival Winner, selected from over three hundred submissions, opens Thursday, July 15, in the Zella Fry Theatre and continues through Sunday, August 1.

Collaborating with Playwrights’ Theatre of New Jersey, Premiere Stages presents Tammy Ryan’s Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods (September 2 trough 19). In this timely new work, Gabriel, an optimistic former “lost boy” from Sudan meets Christine, a suburban mother in desperate need of attention and adventure. What begins as an unlikely friendship becomes an unbreakable bond that changes the pair and leads them to a better understanding of their place in the world.

“We workshopped the play in staged readings,” stated John Wooten, Premiere Stages’ Artistic Director. “The response was incredible. It was clear that this was not a story that should be told, it was one that had to be told.”

The campus community agrees. The Human Rights Institute at Kean University, the Darfur Rehabilitation Project, and the Kean Department of Theatre are collaborating with Premiere Stages to bring this important story to the stage. A special opening night pre-show reception for donors will be held on September 3rd in Kean University’s new Human Rights Institute and a champagne toast with the cast follows the performance.

“I am pleased to have these important partners working with us to bring the play to life. It’s an amazing story and another example of how the arts often bring important issues to the forefront.”

In a similar developmental process, Premiere Stages will advance Gino Dilorio’s The Jag. In this evolving new comedy, a father and son struggle to find missing parts as they reconstruct a car that was never meant to be finished. Through an intensive one-week process, interactive staged readings are presented to the public (June 25 through 27).

Premiere Stages’ Musical Fun Series features two of New Jersey’s finest Actors’ Equity Association theatre companies for young audiences. Running Rabbit Family Theatre presents Pinocchio and Pushcart Players offers Stone Soup and Other Stories and Cuentos Del Arbol .

Premiere Stages launches the brand new Premiere’s Holiday Workshop. A special holiday treat for the entire family, the Workshop features readings of three holiday-themed plays and includes hot cider and treats for everyone. Admission is free; patrons need only to bring a new, unwrapped toy for Toys for Tots.

All performances take place on the Kean University campus, located at 1000 Morris Avenue, Union, N.J. Premiere Stages offers affordable prices, air-conditioned facilities and free parking close to the theatres. Premiere Stages provides free or discounted tickets to patrons with disabilities. All Premiere Stages facilities are fully accessible spaces. Please call for a list of sign-interpreted, audio-described or open-captioned performances. Assistive listening devices and large print programs are available at all times. Publications are available with advanced notice in alternate formats.

Tickets for productions range from $15 to $25, with discounts for groups (Musical Fun tickets are $12 with discounts for groups). The Premiere Package (a new subscription series) saves patrons up to $30.00 and includes free admission to staged readings and other special events. For more information, call 908-737-4092 or visit www.kean.edu/premierestages .

Premiere Stages is made possible in part through funding from The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Kean’s Quality First Initiative, The Westfield Foundation, The Gleason Family Foundation, The Provident Bank Foundation, and through the generous support of individual patrons.

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Schedule of Events:

The Jag
FREE staged readings in the Murphy Dunn Theatre (Vaughn Eames Fine Arts Building)
Friday, June 25, 7 p.m.
Saturday, June 26, 7 p.m.
Sunday, June 27, 3 p.m.

The Good Counselor
Zella Fry Theatre (Vaughn Eames Fine Arts Building)
Thursday, July 15 – Sunday, August 1
Thursday – Saturday performances begin at 8 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday matinee performances begin at 3 p.m.

Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods
Zella Fry Theatre (Vaughn Eames Fine Arts Building)
Friday, September 2 – Sunday, September 19
Fridays and Saturday performances begin at 8 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday matinee performances begin at 3 p.m.
“Pizza Preview” Performance on Thursday, September 2 at 8pm
VIP Opening Night Fundraiser and Performance on Friday, September 3 at 8pm
Special “Early Curtain” performances on Weds, September 8, at 10 a.m. and Thursday, September 16 at 5 p.m.

Premiere’s Holiday Workshop
December 9 – 11, 2010 time(s) to be announced

Musical Fun Series

All Musical Fun performances will be presented in the Little Theatre, with ticket prices ranging from $10 to $12.

PINOCCHIO
Tuesday, July 13 at 11:00 am and 1:30 pm..
Wednesday, July 14 at 11:00 am and 1:30 pm..

CUENTOS del ARBOL
Thursday, July 15 at 11:00 am

STONE SOUP…and other stories
Wednesday, July 21 at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm

CUENTOS del ARBOL
Wednesday, July 28 at 11:00 am

This press release is also available online at:
http://www.kean.edu/about_press.html

Contact Information:

To order tickets, join our mailing list, and/or to request a season brochure, please call the Kean Stage Box Office at 908-737-SHOW (7469).
For groups, call Paul Whelihan at 908-737-4077.
For Camp and the Premiere Residency Program, please call Erica Nagel at 908-737-4092, or visit Premiere Stages online at www.kean.edu/premierestages.

For specifics of the season, please contact Artistic Director John Wooten at jwooten@kean.edu or 908-737-4360.

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