Raymond's Run
and
Blues Ain't No Mockin Bird
by Toni Cade Bambara
Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe
Two stories from Toni Cade Bambara's celebrated collection, Gorilla, My Love. A neighborhood track meet and unexpected visitors to a family farm provide upbeat looks at girlhood and community bonds. "Raymond's Run" is a commentary on how girls are encouraged to compete: but our heroine "Squeaky" transforms a community track meet to a growing awareness of her brother and his disabilities, which prevent him not at all from the joys of running. She sees a path to positive community energy and cooperation for all. "Blues Ain't No Mockin Bird" shows another young girl, and her family's steady, spirited response when filmmakers unabashedly show up to film the family farm for a food stamp program. With her vibrant young narrators, Bambara skewers pretension and presumption.
Raymond's Run and Blues Ain't No Mockin Bird are performed with permission of Toni Cade Bambara's daughter, Karma B. Smith.
CRedits
Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowshe + *
Cast:
Rotimi Agbabiaka + *
Kevin Clarke *
Margo Hall *
Lisa Hori-Garcia + *
Fannielee Lowe *
Peter Macon *
Jasmine Milan
Aejay Mitchell *
Aaron Wilton *
Line Producer: Kelley Ho
Dramaturg: Nancy D. Tolson
Audio Engineer: Patrick Simms
Sound Design: Elton Bradman
Production Assistant: Anthony Doan
Pictures and Biographies Below
+ Company Member, Word for Word Performing Arts Company
* Member, AEA
Author
Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) (Author) was a writer, documentary filmmaker, teacher, social activist, and feminist. Born and raised in New York as Miltona Mirkin Cade, she changed her first name as a child to Toni, and later added the West African Bambara as her last, to honor her origins. She received a BA in Theatre Arts/English from Queens College. She studied mime in Paris, and returned to the US to study and receive a Master's Degree from City College of New York. She was active in the Black Arts Movement, and her work was influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist Movements of the 1960's. Her books include short story collections Gorilla, My Love; The Salt Eaters; The Lesson; War of the Walls, 1970 My Love, The Sea Birds Are Still Alive: Collected Stories. Her novel, Those Bones Are Not My Child, about the discovery and murder of 40 Black children in Atlanta, was published posthumously. She wrote the script for The Bombing of Osage Avenue, about the 1985 Philadelphia police assault on MOVE, as well as scripts for other documentaries. Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions is a compilation of her work, gathered by Toni Morrison. Bambara edited the anthologies The Black Woman: An Anthology and Tales and Stories for Black Folks. She died in Philadelphia in 1995.
Production / Creative Team
Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe (she/her) is an accomplished actor, director, writer, working in the Bay Area for almost 40 years. The founding artistic director of the award-winning ensemble Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience (BACCE), she has directed and produced 10 critically acclaimed productions for the company. She is a former acting and directing member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. She has directed at Trinity Rep, Capitol Rep, Southern Rep, Carpetbag Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, WaterTower Theatre, Curious Theater, SF Playhouse, Magic Theatre, TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, and the Lorraine Hansberry, receiving accolades from Dallas’ Rabin Awards and Backstage’s Dean Goodman Award for Excellence. Edris has appeared as an actor in productions throughout California, and in Nigeria. She was a core member of Rhodessa Jones’ Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women. Her plays, Adventures of A Black Girl In Search of Academic Clarity and Inclusion and There are Women Waiting are published in the anthologies, solo/black/woman and Black Medea. Edris is also a member of Campo Santo, Word for Word, and the National Institute of Directing and Ensemble Creation. She holds an MFA in Theater from the University of Iowa, and is a member of the Goddard College faculty.
Kelley Ho (Line Producer). Born and raised in Sacramento, Kelley Ho found her calling in the performing arts playing the flute and saxophone. At University of California, Irvine, she graduated with a BA in Drama (Honors in Directing) and a minor in Art History. After seven years of experience as a drum major including four national tours in a drum & bugle corps, she continues to teach marching band leadership students from all over the country. She currently resides in Brooklyn. bit.ly/kelleyho
Nancy D. Tolson (Dramaturg) is the assistant director of the African American Studies Program at USC. Thanks to her parents, Nancy has had a strong interest in Black literature and culture throughout her life. She has a Master’s degree in African World Studies and a PhD in English Education from the University of Iowa where she studied African folklore and Black children’s literature. Nancy has been a storyteller as long as she has been vocal as well as one of the storytellers for the Augusta Baker’s Dozen Storytelling Festival for the past five years. Nancy’s critical and creative work can be found in various academic journals, books, online, and walls. Nancy and her husband were successfully raised by their three children and are now being empowered by their five grandsons.
Patrick Simms (Audio Engineer) is a sound professional with a background in music performance and production. He has also written plays for stage and radio, and is a member of the AFM Local 6. He is also the Executive Director of People in Plazas summer, noontime, outdoor concerts in downtown San Francisco, the city he moved to in 1994 after hanging up his career as a daily newspaper reporter in Connecticut.
Elton Bradman’s (Sound Design) 2021 composer/sound designer credits include audio dramas (Aurora Theater’s The Bluest Eye), student productions (A.C.T.’s The House of Yes), Zoom theater (Actors Theaters’ Romeo & Juliet: Louisville 2020), podcasts (Z Space/Word for Word’s Retablos), filmed theater (San Francisco Playhouse’s Hieroglyph), hybrid visual/audio (New Conservatory Theater Company’s Interlude), and outdoor performances (Oakland Theater Project’s The Waste Land). He is currently teaching a sound design course for Western Washington University and co-writing a musical for Bay Area Children’s Theater and the Rose Theater in Omaha, Nebraska. This is Elton's third podcast for Word for Word.
Anthony Doan (Production Assistant) is an actor, playwright, director, excited to be joining the team as a Production Assistant. This is his second PA job with Word for Word, and he is glad that it is with Z Space and such wonderful artists.
Cast
Rotimi Agbabiaka (Terry, Ensemble) (he/him) is an actor, writer, director, and teaching artist. Most recently, Rotimi originated the role of Salima in House of Joy (California Shakespeare Theatre) and Cellphone/Narrator in If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons, NYC). Other acting credits include Black Rider (Shotgun Players), Bootycandy (Brava Theater, TBA award), runboyrun (Magic Theatre), and several shows with the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe. Rotimi penned the solo shows Homeless, Type/Caste (TBA award), and MANIFESTO; co-wrote the musical, Seeing Red with Joan Holden and Ira Marlowe; and dazzles nightlife stages (as alter ego Miss Cleo Patois). www.rotimionline.com
Actor Kevin Clarke at Berkeley theater company Shotgun Players on Monday, November 7, 2016, in Berkeley, Calif
—Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle
Kevin Clarke (Cameraman, Ensemble) (he/him) has loved working on his first project with Word for Word. Kevin has worked as an actor, dancer, drag artist, intimacy choreographer and costume/prop designer in the bay area for over 20 years. He is an artistic company member of Shotgun Players. www.kevinclarkeactor.com
Margo Hall (Squeaky, Cathy) (she/her) recently directed How I Learned What I Learned at Marin Theatre Company, BARBECUE (which she also starred in) and Red Velvet for SF Playhouse and Brownsville, b-side for tray for Shotgun Players. Other acting credits include: Marin Theater Company- JAZZ, Skeleton Crew, Gem of the Ocean, Fences and Seven Guitars. California Shakespeare Theater- Good Person of Szechwan, Black Odyssey, Fences, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Raisin in the Sun, A Winter’s Tale, American Night: the Ballad of Juan Jose and SPUNK. American Conservatory Theater- Ah, Wilderness!, Once in a Lifetime and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet. Aurora Theater- Trouble in Mind. Shotgun Players- A World in a Woman’s Hands, and Word for Word-All Aunt Hagar’s Children and The Blues I’m Playing.
Writing credits include The People’s Temple at Berkeley Repertory Theater (2005 Glickman award for Best New Play) and Be Bop Baby, a Musical Memoir, a semi-autobiographical piece at Z Space, featuring the Marcus Shelby 15-piece Orchestra. She is a founding member of Campo Santo, a longstanding multicultural San Francisco based theater company and has directed, performed and collaborated on several new plays with artists such as Naomi Iizuka, Phillip Kan Gotanda, Sean San Jose, Octavio Solis Luis Saguar, and Jessica Hagedorn. She is also a professor at UC Berkeley and Chabot College in the Theater Department.
Lisa Hori-Garcia (Ensemble) (she/her) is thrilled to be helping bring these stories to life with this incredibly talented cast and crew. She has previously worked with Word for Word in the school tour of The Master-Maid, as well as Stories from Sonoma Mountain and Holiday High Jinx. During this pandemic, Lisa has been focusing her energy to radio plays and zoom readings and can be heard in Word for Word's WordforWordcast series as well as in SFMT’s radio plays: Tales of the Resistance www.sfmt.org. When not performing in front of a microphone, Lisa has kept busy teaching online with Word for Word’s Youth Arts education programs. Lisa is a proud Company Member of Word for Word.
Fannielee Lowe (Mother, Mary Louise, Granny) (she/her) from Pocatello, Idaho came to San Francisco in 1962 for a two-week vacation and hasn't left yet. She's been a jazz vocalist, a poet, a character actor, a teacher and now is a GREAT grandmother who will turn on the news again when they announce a world party and invite everybody.
Peter Macon (Grandfather, Raphael, Granddaddy,) (he/him) Is delighted to reunite with the WFW family after THIRTEEN YEARS (since Sonny's Blues, 2008). Peter is an MFA graduate from the Yale school of Drama, and a veteran actor of stage and screen. He most recently played Bortus the second officer aboard The Orville. He has had recurring roles on such series as Shameless, Supernatural, and Dexter, and Amazon Prime's streaming series Bosch. Stage works including Macbeth and Othello.
Jasmine Milan (Gretchen, "Me" in Blues) (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and actor who uses art as a vessel for change, collaborating with BIPOC artists and organizations to tell bold stories and shine light on Black and Queer Liberations. Recently you might have witnessed her storytelling in: Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage (Lorraine Hansberry Theater), The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison adapted by Lydia R. Diamond (Aurora Theatre), Utopia by Charles L. Mee (Cutting Ball Theater), The New Normal (Youtube Web Series by Ashley Smiley), Bull in a China Shop by Bryna Turner (Aurora Theatre) and more. She has appeared at CampoSanto(Family/Company Member) ,Theater First, Those Woman Production company, African American Shakespeare Company, and New Conservatory Theater Centre. She thanks her family and friends for always encouraging her to follow her dreams, and standing behind an artist that works to change the world through her art! Next up she will be costuming Babes of Ho-LLand at Shotgun. “It's an Artist's Duty to Reflect the Times.”- Nina Simone.
Aejay Mitchell (Raymond, Tyrone) (they/them) is an Actor, Director, Choreographer, and Dramaturg currently navigating life in Oakland, CA. They are the Director of Theatre at Contra Costa School of Performing Arts where they head a 16 course program and a five show season. They are also a proud member of Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience and Actor's Equity! They specialize in dance theatre, experimental theatre, and political theatre. They challenge themselves and the field to ask itself, "If a work ain't moving the collective us towards freedom, why are we still doing it?"
Aaron Wilton (Director, Ensemble) (he/him) is an award-winning actor, voice-over artist and motion-capture artist, known for small roles in film (Jexi, The Boat Builder), television (Criminal Minds, Sunset Glory) and video games (Watch Dogs 2, Godfather 2, Mafia:Definitive Edition, Battlefield: Hardline), as well as commercials with Taco Bell, Xfinity, Wells Fargo, Blue Shield, Charles Schwab, Chase, Cisco, Adobe, EA Games, Pixar, Tejava and US Cellular. Stage productions include George Street Playhouse's Inspecting Carol, Aurora Theatre Company's John Gabriel Borkman, Hudson Stage Company's After All and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at San Jose Stage Company.
