BRAVA!

For Women in the Arts

Recipient of the Rex Foundation's 1997
JERRY GARCIA AWARD

Established in memory of Grateful Dead guitarist and founding Rex board member Jerry Garcia (1942-1995), this award is designed to honor and support individuals and groups that work to encourage creativity in young people.

BRAVA is one of the few theaters in the country that specializes in the creation of new work, and the only one whose primary purpose is to produce outstanding world premieres by women of color playwrights. Their high-quality productions project onto the American stage an aesthetic that is simultaneously multicultural and feminist; their comprehensive theater training program serves multicultural women in theater from first-time stage managers to established playwrights.

Brava! for Women in the Arts is deeply rooted in the multicultural women's community. We are also deeply rooted geographically, politically and spiritually in the Mission District neighborhood. Our founding meeting ten years ago was held at La Galeria de la Raza and our most successful productions have spoken most strongly to Mission-based audiences of color.

The Rex Foundation Award focuses on BRAVA's educational program, which is embedded in an innovative theatre program in the Mission District of San Francisco.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

BRAVA conducts a program that follows the nationally-recognized model of DramaDIVAS: Latinas In Theater (LIT), a job training program in collaboration with the YMCA serving Latina teens in the Mission District. Young women and girls are encouraged to take on leadership roles, to speak and perform before their peers and others, and to express feelings and aspirations in a theatrical setting. Early sessions with the Mission Girls have raised serious issues including gang rape, incest and drug use.

DramaDIVAS also helps youth of color into full-time jobs in San Francisco's commercial and non-profit arts industries through the Cultural Equity Arts Development Project headed by California Lawyers for the Arts. Developing this program, the Arts and Production Technology Program (also know as The S.F.Running Crew) will train at-risk youths, in union-approved technical programs, enabling them to be subsequently placed in well-paying jobs in arts-related fields such as concert' theater, film, television and festival production. The emphasis in this project is hands-on immersion in production technologies through practical excerises and classroom instruction in audio engineering, lighting, production management, and scenic construction. A job placement coordinatior will place program participants in arts-related jobs, paid internships, and/or apprenticeships in both for-profit and non-profit arts industries.

BRAVA received support from the San Francisco Housing Authority to implement Dramatic Action, an arts education and job training program for youth residents of public housing with a focus on drug prevention. The program reached over 60 participants in five housing projects in the city, exposing them to the theater arts as an alternative to destructive behavior and as a means of cultural and self-expression and non-violent conflict resolution.

BRAVA is a founding member of a San Francisco-based multi-agency collaboration serving at-risk youth: the Cultural Equity Arts Development Project. The DramaDIVAS Program is the nation's first arts-based intervention project serving at-risk multicultural lesbian/gay youth. These teens of color encounter violence and harassment and the damaging effects of racism: they must struggle to affirm themselves as people of color and as lesbians and gays; many find themselves caught between worlds and without a community. Instructor Cherrie Moraga gears the program to address the needs of Latino, African American and Asian American youth by encouraging them to express themselves, to develop positive self-images and to enhance their self-esteem through performance.

BRAVA's instructional program has evolved into a comprehensive dramatic arts program, serving beginning solo performers who write their own material, and conducting entry level and advanced workshops in playwrighting, lighting design. directing and acting.

COMMISSIONING

Under the visionary guidance of founder Ellen Gavin, BRAVA's Commissioning Program is the nation's first organized attempt to systematically nurture the next generation of female theater artists from the earliest development of an idea to a full production. The program provides multicultural women the financial resources to create, develop and stage new work and expands audiences among communities who rarely have the opportunity to see their lives reflected in professional quality theater productions.

THE BRAVA THEATRE CENTER

Brava, steadily gaining a national artistic reputation, wanted to retain and deepen a neighborhood community base. In January of 1996 Brava purchased a 13,100 square foot building at 2761-91 24th Street in San Francisco which houses the York Theater and five storefronts, and transformed it into the Brava Theater Center.

Productions of Brava include:

SHADOW OF A MAN by Cherrie Moraga
HEROES AND SAINTS by Cherrie Moraga
ALLIGATOR TALES by Anne Galjour
THE ROOF'S ON FIRE by Ellen Marie Jones
AUTHUR AND LEILA by Cherylene Lee
SOMEWHERE OVER THE BALCONY by Ellen Marie Jones
FOSTER FIELD by Elizabeth Summers
THE AMERICA PLAY by Suzan-Lori Parks
WATSONVILLE by Cherrie Moraga
THE COTTON MATHER STORY by Amy Freed
RADIO MAMBA: CULTURE CLASH INVADES MIAMI