Human Rights Art Festival
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     Silver Spring, Maryland, April 23-25, 2010
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Friday, April 23


6:30 Amnesty Postcards (Steve Connell): Commissioned by Norman Lear especially for the Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival, this spoken word piece is based on four different aspects of Amnesty International’s advocacy work.

(20 minutes) (Ellsworth Plaza)


Saturday, April 24


Noon Walk Unafraid (Gabrielle Senza): A powerful do-it-yourself public art project that any group can do anywhere, the Walk Unafraid initiative empowers survivors of abuse, raises public awareness of the silent epidemic and educates the public to recognize, understand and prevent abuse. (‘til 6 pm) (Pyramid Atlantic)


12:15 Good Mother Project (Karen Cellini): A spoken word piece; an ode to womanhood. (15 minutes) (Pyramid Atlantic outside)


1:15 Absolutely Amy (John Morogiello): Concerns an apolitical girl who discovers on the eve of her wedding that her fiancé was a black site torturer. By the end, she heeds the call of activism to stop torture and extreme rendition, and to punish those responsible. (90 minutes) (Jackie’s)


2 The Last Sacred Place (John Becker) Jack Horner is a philosophy teacher whose pregnant wife is shot at random by a confused teenager. He becomes convinced that society has snapped. In order to advance the cause of civilization, he decides to literally attack what he deems the most egregious aspects of society. He targets the NRA, an obnoxious day-time talk show host, and a right-wing politician who killed programs Jack felt would have, in their way, advanced evolution.

(75 minutes) (Taste of Morocco)


3 White Noise (Tom Block): Written by Art Festival Producer Tom Block, "White Noise" follows an African-American painter on spiritual themes, Tim, as he struggles with interior demons, an increasingly bizarre exterior reality and a scantily-clad Simone Weil, a historical figure that metastasizes as a figment of his own imagination.  Having abandoned true faith, Tim grasps for "faith in faith," and in the end finds dubious consolation, alone in a bathroom.

(75 minutes) (Jackie’s)


4 The Beauty Inside (Catherine Filloux): This drama follows a promising young attorney who passes up a lucrative offer at a big American law firm to defend the survivor of an attempted honor killing in her native Turkey.

(120 minutes) (Taste of Morocco)


4 Radio Free Fahad (Theaters Against the War): A street theatre vigil highlighting the plight of Fahad Hashmi who was arrested based on an indictment from an American federal grand jury. Hashmi's lawyer found out that the items being labeled as "military gear" were socks and rainproof ponchos. He has been held in solitary confinement in the Special Housing Unit at Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan, with no trial. The “vigil” is styled like a radio show - including performers doing music, songs and street theater. (45 minutes) (Pyramid Atlantic outside)


4:30 Fear Up: Stories from Baghdad and Guantanamo Bay (Karen Bradley): An anti-war theater piece, which includes a spontaneous reading involving the audience. (60 minutes) (Jackie’s)


5 Tapped Out: Words About the Water Crisis (Poetic People Power): This spoken-word piece contains new works about the growing scarcity of this precious resource. (60 minutes) (Montgomery College Theater I)


6:15 Killing the Boss (Catherine Filloux). A writer on a grant to work in an unnamed country decides to buy a gun and kill the head of state, a war criminal. This wicked farce of logic and intention explodes like a caustic party popper when Eve—the American innocent in a garden of evil—tries out of fury, frustration, and addiction to her cause, to assassinate the Boss.

(90 minutes) (Montgomery College Theater I)


8 Amnesty Postcards (Steve Connell): Commissioned by Norman Lear especially for the Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival, this spoken word piece is based on four different aspects of Amnesty International’s advocacy work.

(20 minutes) (Montgomery College Theater I)


8 Good Mother Project (Karen Cellini): A spoken word piece; an ode to womanhood. (15 minutes) (Jackie’s)


8:30 Petticoats to Politics (Kate Campbell Stevenson): This one-woman show explores the women’s suffragist movement, from the founding of our nation into the 20th century, when universal suffrage was finally attained. Eleanor Roosevelt, Abigail Adams, Alice Paul and Rose Crabtree are only a few of the great women who brought about the necessary change in the role women play in the U.S. government. (45 minutes) (Jackie’s)


9 Storytelling with Lakota Sioux Dovie Thomason and Malian Griot Cheikh Diabate, professional storytellers who will share their craft.

(90 minutes) (B&O Railroad Station)


Sunday, April 25


Noon Walk Unafraid (Gabrielle Senza): A powerful do-it-yourself public art project that any group can do anywhere, the Walk Unafraid initiative empowers survivors of abuse, raises public awareness of the silent epidemic and educates the public to recognize, understand and prevent abuse. (‘til 6 pm) (Pyramid Atlantic outside)


12:15 Good Mother Project (Karen Cellini): A spoken word piece; an ode to womanhood. (15 minutes) (Pyramid Atlantic outside)


12:30 Quest Theater Company (Mosaic): Dressed in identical black trench coats, five expressionless actors dart randomly across the stage. Gripped with fear they find security in their sameness. So begins Mosaic, an exploration of societal pressure to conform and the individual's need for freedom. Performed by Quest's international touring company, Mosaic incorporates mime, movement, gesture, dance, and sign language. (60 minutes) (Montgomery College Theater I)


3 Waiting for Lefty (Forum Theater): Based on a 1934 strike of unionized New York cab drivers, Clifford Odets's Waiting for Lefty is a spirited and vigorous one-act play and a classic example of agit-prop theatre.  A series of vignettes framed by two union meetings leading up to the strike, its 1935 opening at the height of the Great Depression was a critical and popular sensation, which soon led to many productions across the country.  Waiting for Lefty has an uncanny relevance today. (60 minutes) (McGinty’s)


3:30 Red Hood: Once Upon a Wartime (Marietta Hedges): An adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood that uses puppets, actors, pantomime and spoken text to focus attention on the plight of children in war zones and zones of conflict.

(50 minutes) (Montgomery College Theater I)


4 Every Six Minutes (Anita Simmons) Set in early 2009, Every 6 Minutes tells the fictional story of Annie Cummings, a college student in Ohio, who innocently unravels the story of two young female soldiers who were raped and allegedly committed suicide in Iraq in 2007. Annie also learns to come to terms with the fact that she herself was date raped and through a series of bizarre circumstances realizes that she is the best person to tell their story. In the U.S., a woman is raped every six minutes, and one in five women will be sexually assaulted during her college years. (90 minutes) (Jackie’s)


4 Radio Free Fahad (Theaters Against the War): a street theatre vigil highlighting the plight of Fahad Hashmi who was arrested based on an indictment from an American federal grand jury. Hashmi's lawyer found out that the items being labeled as "military gear," were socks and rainproof ponchos. He has been held in solitary confinement in the Special Housing Unit at Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan, with no trial. The “vigil” is styled like a radio show - including performers doing music, songs and street theater. (45 minutes) (Pyramid Atlantic outside)


4 Good Mother Project (Karen Cellini): A spoken word piece; an ode to womanhood. (15 minutes) (Langano’s)


4:30 Words of Choice (Words of Choice Theater Company) A woman's right to choose soars in a tapestry of 14 powerful 'shorts'—serious and comic. Followed by a discussion. (150 minutes, including discussion)

(Montgomery College Health Sciences Bldg. 122)


5 memor I am (Dennis Deter Performance, Germany): Deals with an ongoing physical presence of staged dying. There is perhaps no more desensitizing aspect of contemporary culture than repetitive, staged violence passed-off as "entertainment." memor I am explores this insidious dynamic.

(35 minutes) (Montgomery College Theater I)







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