Theatre as a Force For Change

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With Trump usurping the Kennedy Center as part of the conservative cancel culture campaign to control cultural creations, six L.A. actors, playwrights, directors and artistic directors are gathering at the Left Coast Forum to discuss: What is the Role of Theater in the Resistance?

In addition to entertaining, theater can enlighten, educate, agitate, and inspire audiences to resist MAGA’s authoritarian offensive and onslaught by presenting a counter-narrative. 

 Moderator: Ed Rampell.  

As panel moderator theater critic Ed Rampell will briefly introduce each participant before they discuss the social impact of their stage work and/or perform for about 10 minutes. After all of the panelists do so, Rampell will moderate a discussion with the theater artists, closing with members of the audience asking the artists questions. The panelists are:

 STEPHEN SACHS is the playwright of 2024’s Fatherland, the first play about the Jan. 6 riot which premiered at the Fountain Theatre and was staged Off-Broadway by Manhattan Theatre Club. For 35 years Stephen was the Fountain’s Artistic Director, which “sees diversity, inclusion, and equity as central to its mission.”  

 IONA MORRIS is a director, playwright, actress, and daughter of the original Mission: Impossible’s Greg Morris. Iona recently helmed Greenwood 1964, about Fannie Lou Hamer, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier campaigning for Civil Rights in Mississippi at ​the Greenway Court Theatre. About a decade ago Iona brought the musical Still Standing to Switzerland. 

 GUILLERMO CIENFUEGOS is Artistic Director of the envelope-pushing Rogue Machine Theatre, which often tackles timely, controversial subjects, about race, police brutality, sexual identity, gun violence and more. He has also helmed plays for other venues, such as Ionesco’s Rhinoceros for Pacific Resident Theatre. 

 TANIA VERAFIELD is an actress who has starred in plays such as Theatre of NOTE’s For the Love Of (Or, The Roller Derby Play) and A Noise Within’s Othello. Tania is the granddaughter of blacklisted screenwriter Robert Lees..- 

 MARIANA DA SILVA is a Brazilian-born actress, director and playwright who wrote, directed and starred in Ybor City, which was presented by The Actors’ Gang. 

 JULIO HANSON starred as James Baldwin in two plays at the Robey Theatre, Last Night at Mikell’s and A Heated Discussion.