World Theatre Day Blog

2010 will mark the seventh year that The Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance has organized local World Theatre Day celebrations. While World Theatre Day was established by the International Theatre Institute on March 27th, 1961, many theatre artists are still unfamiliar with this one day a year when we commemorate Theatre.

This year’s WTD celebrations will take place primarily during the final week of March, and include free and discounted theatre performances, open rehearsals, play readings, backstage tours, and talkbacks. Also, expect the unexpected in the form of theatre flashmobs popping up all over.

This year also includes the ever-popular Art by Actors, where well-known theatre personalities try their hands at visual art for a change. Their paintings will be on display at The Stanley Industrial Alliance Theatre and viewable online on the Arts Club website from March 11–April 17.

On March 21, at the Central Branch of the library, Vancouver’s beloved stage and screen actor Jackson Davies (The Producers, The Foursome, The Beachcombers) will be hosting a series of intimate, no-holds barred discussions with people who shape theatre in this city. The panel includes Pat Smith (Playhouse Costume Mistress), Colleen Wheeler (Bard on the Beach), Amiel Gladstone (writer and Artistic Director), Sasa Brown (Jessie-winning actor) and many more.

On March 28, come to the World Theatre Day Wrap Party at the WISE Hall. Mix and mingle with other theatre lovers and artists as we party it up, World Theatre Day style! Program includes reading the International WTD message, encore performances and videos of our flash mob events, and video conferencing with other WTD parties world-wide. Admission is by donation.

In addition, this year’s World Theatre Day message, written by Dame Judi Dench, will be read prior to curtain on stages all over Vancouver and the World on March 27.

For a full schedule of local events go to: http://www.gvpta.ca/world-theatre-day.

Join Chicago theatre’s WTD Celebration at the Chopin Theatre on Saturday, March 27. In the evening, experience a special World Theater Day performance of The House’s WILSON WANTS IT ALL or BackStage’s ORANGE FLOWER WATER. Then, beginning at 9:30 as the city’s Saturday shows come down, join us for some complimentary food, music, conversation, and performances all provided by the League of Chicago Theatres, the Chopin Theatre, and folks in the Chicago theatre community.

FACEBOOK INVITE

Every space in the Chopin becomes a promenade party, with a little bit of something for everyone to celebrate our corner of the world, and reach out to all the others. Downstairs will feature live music and loungey hob-nobbing with the folks who make Chicago theatre tick. In the lobby, social media connections fuel an international conversation with a host of Chicago’s international friends. And on the mainstage, Chris Piatt, former theatre editor for TimeOut Chicago, brings his PAPER MACHETE live magazine to investigate – and roast – Chicago’s historic relationships with other cities in “The Second City Complex.”

INTERNATIONAL THEATER SHOUT-OUTS
Since World Theatre Day is all about generating cross-cultural dialogue that explores the power of theater to celebrate life and effect social change through collaborative performance, we’re hoping to foster some real international dialogue and collaboration leading up to the event. So this goes out to both Chicago companies and theatres outside of the United States – we want to be “sister” companies with you this year!

STEP ONE – Let’s make contact. Connect with an artist or company in Chicago, or outside the country – and think about what issues, ideas, and dialogue you would want to share them. Tell them about World Theatre Day and how theater changes your community.

STEP TWO – Talk it out. Record a video or audio greeting to that sister company, and have them send one to you. Share your thoughts about social issues, community issues, aesthetic exploration, or just who you are. Listen to what your new friends across the globe are working on and trying to accomplish. Find common ground.

STEP THREE – Share. Make a record of your conversation – a video greeting, an audio recording of a skype conversation, a collaborative art project, a photo – and post it to the internationally-contributed World Theatre Day tumblr blog (http://wtd10.tumblr.com), just by emailing a link to what you’ve made to http://tinyurl.com/wtdmedia, or ask us for help with this project at worldtheatreday@nikku.net.

In celebration of World Theatre Day Mind The Gap Theatre is taking over the Crooked Knife Bar & Restaurant in Gramercy for the night! This cozy bar/restaurant is located at 29 E. 30th Street (between Park and Madison).

We’ll be celebrating theatre and the wonderful people who make it. Enjoy a relaxing night with fellow thespians and make some great new contacts over a pint.
There will be $4 Well drinks and $3 Miller lights, raffles, fun and so much more.  bring a HEADSHOT AND RESUME or a short scene you have written for us to consider for our upcoming short play festival BRITBITS.
More details will be announced in the coming weeks, but for now SAVE THE DATE and plan on joining us for drinks specials and witty repartee from 7pm!

Paula D’Alessandris
Mind The Gap Theatre
www.mindthegaptheatre.com

Dame Judi Dench – Message 2010

World Theatre Day is an opportunity to celebrate Theatre in all its myriad forms. Theatre is a source of entertainment and inspiration and has the ability to unify the many diverse cultures and peoples that exist throughout the world. But theatre is more than that and also provides opportunities to educate and inform.

Theatre is performed throughout the world and not always in a traditional theatre setting. Performances can occur in a small village in Africa, next to a mountain in Armenia, on a tiny island in the Pacific. All it needs is a space and an audience. Theatre has the ability to make us smile, to make us cry, but should also make us think and reflect.

Theatre comes about through team work. Actors are the people who are seen, but there is an amazing set of people who are not seen. They are equally as important as the actors and their differing and specialist skills make it possible for a production to take place. They too must share in any triumphs and successes that may hopefully occur.

March 27 is always the official World Theatre Day. In many ways every day should be considered a theatre day, as we have a responsibility to continue the tradition to entertain, to educate and to enlighten our audiences, without whom we couldn’t exist.

I just got this email from Danielle Mari Filas, the Artistic Director of the Rosebriar Shakespeare Company in Groveport, OH.

My company, along with Britt Kline of the Columbus Civic Theatre in Columbus OH is presenting Chickspeare! as part of both World Theatre Day and as part of SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day on Saturday, March 27.  As both holidays fall on the same day, we are doing double duty– we’re presenting a series of traditionally male Shakespearean scenes performed by local female actors in order to both celebrate World Theatre Day and to benefit women in the arts in honor of SWAN Day.  We’ll be performing at Columbus Civic Theater, 3837 Indianola Ave., Columbus, OH 43214-3755.

Rosebriar Shakespeare Company’s website is http://www.rosebriarshakespeare.org.  We are opening a show within the next week and a half, so our site is currently devoted to that.  Once the show is open, though, we will update the site with WTD/SWAN information.
http://www,facebook.com/RosebriarShakespeare
http://www.twitter.com/RosebriarShakes

Columbus Civic Theatre
http://www.columbuscivic.org/
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=24693873019&ref=ts

Thanks, Danielle!

I’m excited. It’s January, and last weekend we had our first facilitator’s meeting. World Theatre Day is only a little over two months away, and the planning is starting…

First a bit of background. If you’re new here, welcome. This blog was started in 2009. I work as a theatre publicist in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and for the past three years, I have done publicity for our local WTD celebrations. I have also been blogging for a little over a year. Last year, while we were planning our WTD celebrations, I started thinking “what if we made WTD a truly international celebration? What if there was a place on the internet where people could share their WTD stories, and also get information about WTD, its mandate, and ideas about how to celebrate it in their own communities?”

So, I put the word out through Twitter, and in short order, we assembled an amazing, skilled team of facilitators from all over the world. Some of whom, while they were theatre artists, had never heard of World Theatre Day.

We got the blessing of the ITI, and this blog was the result. If you page back, or look at our Tumblog, you’ll see all the amazing and awesome ways that theatre artists from all over the world celebrated March 27, 2009.

This year, we need your help to make WTD 2010 an even greater success!

Here are some things you can do to celebrate World Theatre Day in your community:

• Go to a play, and take a friend.
• Organize a play reading in your community
• Write, videotape, or record why you love theatre, and email it to frabbaurt633@tumblr.com
  
• Read the World Theatre Day International Address (this year’s has not been published yet, but you can believe the second it is, it’ll be on this blog!)  prior to curtain at your theatre, or include it as a handout in your theatre’s program. Ask a local favorite actor or dignitary to read it. If you can, record this reading by photos, video or audio, and email it (or the link, if you are uploading it to Flickr, or YouTube) to frabbaurt633@tumblr.com. It will automatically post to the Tumblog.
• If you have a blog, write a post about what you are doing to celebrate World Theatre Day in your area, then email the URL to findbex@gmail.com. We will cross-post your entry on the WTD blog.
• If you don’t have a blog, please email your story directly to us, and we will post it on the blog.
• Offer backstage tours of your theatre to the local community
• Offer open rehearsals to your community
• Offer discounted or free tickets.
• Offer open readings to your community.
• Share photos of your production and photos of your cast and crew with your audience to the World Theatre Day media hub.
• Distribute theatre-related books, scripts etc. around your part of the world for example, Book Crossings (http://www.bookcrossing.com), ‘release your books’ in a public place – theatre foyers; coffee shops; park benches etc. Put a sticker on the front saying something like, ‘I’m free. Please give me a home. Happy World Theatre Day!’
• Work up a flash mob. Gather people together in a particular place at a particular time to ‘do’ something theatre-related e.g., everyone gathered reads a sonnet in a supermarket or just freezes at a particular time reading an obviously theatre-related book, then moves on after 1 minute’s freeze. Guaranteed to attract attention!

One new thing we are going to try to facilitate this year is to make connections, via technology, between theatres in different cities, or even countries. If you are planning on having a WTD celebration party, let us know, and we will try to hook you up, via Skype or some other means, with another city who is doing the same thing.

After all, World Theatre Day is about us celebrating how amazing the work that we do every day is!

–Rebecca

As I posted on Sunday, Augusto Boal, founder of The Theatre of the Oppressed, and writer of this year’s World Theatre Day International Address, has died.

Here in Vancouver, the man closest to Boal is certainly David Diamond, Artistic Director of Headlines Theatre. Yesterday, Diamond sent out this eulogy which he wrote for his friend and colleauge, and I asked him if I could share it.

It is with deep sadness that we acknowledge the death of Brazilian theatre director and founder of the “Theatre of the Oppressed” (TO), Augusto Boal. In the early hours of May 2, 2009, the world experienced the passing of a visionary theatre artist, activist and educator.

Boal’s passionately theatrical spirit and his uncompromising commitment to human rights, combined with an infectious sense of play, spread the ideas and practice of TO around the world.

Boal leaves a rich legacy of innovation in theatre and social activism, books, articles, and inspired hearts and minds. As Chris Vine, a friend and colleague from NY wrote upon hearing this sad news, “…we are all grateful for the lives Boal had touched, inspired and linked together artistically, politically and personally, transcending time and distance.”

To me, personally, he was an inspiration, a mentor, a colleague and a beloved friend. No more fiery emails back and forth, Augusto? This is so hard to contemplate. You will always be a welcome “Cop in my Head”. Thank you for so much.

Messages have been posted on the International Theatre of the Oppressed (ITO) website from Adrian Jackson, a TO practitioner and translator of Boal’s books, http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org. and Bárbara Santos, on behalf of the Centre of the Theatre of the Oppressed (CTO) Rio. Access Bárbara’s message by clicking on the image of Boal in the upper right of the home page. A condolences registry, where you can leave your thoughts, is available by clicking inside the “interventions” link of Adrian’s message.

On behalf of all of us at Headlines, our condolences to the Boal family, CTO Rio, the global TO community, and all. Boal touched the lives of so many.

David Diamond
Artistic Director, Headlines Theatre, Vancouver BC, Canada

–Rebecca Coleman

I was stunned to receive this email today from Carla Estefan, with whom we had quite a lot of contact during our World Theatre Day celebrations. Augusto Boal was the given the honour of writing this year’s World Theatre Day International Address.

The playwright and theater director, Augusto Boal, died in the early hours of today, at 78 years, of respiratory failure in the Samaritan Hospital in the district of Botafogo, Rio. He suffered from leukemia and was hospitalized since April 28. The location and time of the funeral have not been disclosed.

The work of Boal, who was also essayist and theorist of theater, gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created the Theater of the Oppressed, which was internationally recognized by combining drama to social action.

Boal graduated with a degree in Chemistry fromthe Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 1950, but then traveled to the United States, where he studied dramatic arts at Columbia University. Back in Brazil, his first piece as a director was Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, which garnered him an award from the the APCA (São Paulo Association of Art Critics). He directed of the show Opinião, with Zé Kette, João do Vale and Nara Leão, which went down in history as an act of resistance to the military coup of 1964.

From Boal’s WTD International Address:

Weddings and funerals are “spectacles”, but so, also, are daily rituals so familiar that we are not conscious of this. Occasions of pomp and circumstance, but also the morning coffee, the exchanged good-mornings, timid love and storms of passion, a senate session or a diplomatic meeting – all is theatre.

Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

Boal was a man who truly used theatre to change the world. A bright light has gone out today, and he will be sorely missed.

Read the entire WTD address.

Read my interview with David Diamond, Boal’s colleague here in Vancouver.

–Rebecca Coleman

In Quebec City today, young and veteran actors took to the local buses for World Theatre Day in a guerrilla type of theatre and read pieces from different plays engaging surprised bus travelers! At the end of the en route performances, at the Grand Theatre, writer, André Ricard and young actress Édith Patenaude read the traditional World Theatre Day’s International message, this year written by Augusto Boal.

Henry Godinez, Artistic Associate and Curator of the Latino Festival of the Goodman Theatre, has been working to bring a Cuban theatre troupe to Chicago for several years, and there are hopeful signs that it will be possible during the 2010 Festival. U.S. citizens can help support this initiative by adding your name to the open letter from U.S. Artists, Arts Presenters, Arts Educators and Cultural Scholars in support of Cultural Relations with Cuba, and we’re sure international artists can help in the effort as well!

Online at http://www.cubaresearch.info/cubaletter2009, En español

February 17, 2009 (submission date)

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC

Dear President Obama:

We are artists, arts presenters, arts educators, cultural entrepreneurs and scholars, and cultural heritage and policy professionals from diverse political persuasions. We have been adversely affected by the cultural embargo imposed by the U.S. government against both Cuban and American artists and cultural institutions. We are writing to request that you make concrete changes in U.S. policy towards Cuba that will allow for the uninhibited flow of art, culture, information, ideas and debates, as well as travel by artists, cultural workers and professionals, and arts and cultural aficionados between the two countries.

U.S. policies towards Cuba – worsened many times over by the previous administration and criticized throughout the world – have prevented us from engaging in critical communication and collaboration with our Cuban counterparts, compromising our nation’s cherished ideals of freedom of expression and preventing cultural interchange between two societies that share a historic relationship lasting over two centuries.

In 2007 we requested policy changes from the Bush Administration so that respectful, critical dialogue and principled exchange could take place between the peoples of Cuba and the United States and our respective governments. Our petition fell on deaf ears. As citizens, artists, scholars, educators and cultural workers from all artistic practices and from advocacy and service organizations in the arts, we now call upon your Administration to:

1. open a respectful dialogue with the government and people of Cuba in accord with established protocols supported by the community of nations;

2. end the travel ban that prevents U.S. citizens from visiting Cuba, and allow for Cuban artists and scholars to visit the United States, thus eliminating the censorship of art and ideas, and

3. initiate, by working with the U.S. Congress, a process that can result in the development of normal, respectful bilateral relations between our countries.

The artistic and cultural communities in the United States and in Cuba are catalysts of imagination and creativity. We are committed to serve as bridges for our fellow citizens. Now, we need our government to take leadership and re-open the pathways of exchange.

We look forward to working with you to advance the interests of the United States and of Cuba.

Sincerely,

Patch Adams, MD, Clowns Against War, Arlington, VA
Michael Alexander, Executive Director, Grand Performances* & Chair, California Arts Council*, Los Angeles, CA
Mavis Anderson, US-Cuba Cultural Exchange, Washington, DC
Jorge Artiles, Music Event Producer, Havana Productions*, Miami FL
David Asbell, Executive Director, Lobero Theater Foundation, Santa Barbara, CA
Stuart A. Ashman, Cabinet Secretary, State of New Mexico Cultural Affairs, Santa Fe, NM
Bob Augelli, Ph.D., Director, Rosa Blanca Project, Lawrence, KS
Stephen Bailey, Executive Director/CEO, Grand Opera House, Wilmington, DE
Philip Ballman, Co-Founder, Mondo Mundo Agency, Brooklyn, NY
Sean Barlow and Banning Eyre, Afropop Worldwide, Brooklyn, NY
Laura Bickford, Film Producer, Los Angeles, CA
Mark Bingham, Musician, Piety Street Recording, New Orleans, LA
Larry Blumenfeld, Journalist and Music Critic, Brooklyn, NY
Beth Boone, Artistic & Executive Director, Miami Light Project, Miami, FL
Jimmy Bosch, Musician/CEO JRGR Records, New York, NY
Joe Boyd, Record Producer and Author, London, England
Robert Bozina, Professor of Music, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
Bill Bragin, Director of Public Programming, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts*, New York, NY
Emerson Bran, CEO/Booking Agent, Emerson Bran Management*, Van Nuys, CA
Vinie Burrows, Actor & UN Representative, Womens Intl Democratic Federation, New York, NY
Joseph Cabral, Musician, The Iguanas, New Orleans, LA
Judy Cantor-Navas, Journalist, New York, NY
Jim Cassell, The Berkeley Agency, Berkeley, CA
Regina Cervantes, 9/11 Rescue Worker, Cast of SiCKO*, Yukon, OK
Paul Chin, Executive Director, La Pena Cultural Center*, Berkeley, CA
Jimmy Cobb, NEA Jazz Master, Drums, New York, NY
Aaron Cohen, Music Journalist, Chicago, IL
Neal Copperman, Executive Director, AMP Concerts/¡Globalquerque!, Albuquerque, NM
Wilson Corniel, Musician, Richmond Hill, New York, NY
Maria Costa, Producer, Los Angeles, CA
Susan Criner, Owner, Gulf Coast Entertainment, Houston, TX
Jose Cruz, President, Jazz/Latino, Inc., Guilderland, NY
Hector Cruz-Sandoval, Filmmaker/Producer, Los Angeles, CA
Barbara Dane, Musician, Oakland, CA
Juan Dies, Executive Director, Sones de Mexico Ensemble, Chicago, IL
Charlie Dos Santos, Producer/Engineer, New York, NY
James Early, Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, Washington, DC
Emiliano Echeverria, Independent Scholar, Radio Producer, KPFA/Pacifica Radio*, San Francisco, CA
Jacob Edgar, President, Cumbancha, Charlotte, VT
Wallace I. Edgecombe, Director, Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture, Bronx, NY
Cynthia Elliott, Executive Director, Symphony Space, New York, NY
T.J. English, Author, New York, NY
Diana Ezerins, Programming Coordinator, The Kennedy Center, Washington, DC
Cory Fisher, Journalist/Field Producer, SiCKO*, Nevada City, CA
Charles Fishman, Executive Producer, Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, Washington, DC
Dale Fitzgerald, Arts Presenter, The Jazz Gallery, New York, NY
Juan and Miriam Flores, Independent Scholars, Brooklyn, NY
Quetzal Flores, Musician/Producer/Pro-Activist, Quetzal, East Los Angeles, CA
Gerald Fried, Composer, Santa Fe, NM
Tom Frouge, Manager/Presenter, Avokado Artists, Placitas, NM
Steve Frumkin, President, Jim Wadsworth Productions Agency, Cleveland, OH
Kathryn Garcia, Director of Programming, Arsht Center for the Performing Arts*, Miami, FL
Keith Ghion, President, Geodesic Management, New York, NY
Rob Gibson, Executive & Artistic Director, Savannah Music Festival, Savannah, GA
Danny Glover, Actor & Activist, San Francisco, CA
Tom Gold, Agent, The Rosebud Agency, San Francisco, CA
Paul Goldman, Agent, Monterey International, Carmel, CA
Arturo Gomez Cruz, Public Radio Mgmt, Jazz89 KUVO-FM/DOCA Commissioner City-County of Denver, Denver, CO
David Gonzalez, Ph.D, Poet/Storyteller, Nyack, NY
Peter Gordon, Composer/Musician/Educator, New Rochelle, NY
Jose Griego, Ph.D., President, Northern New Mexico College, Espanola, NM
Tom Guralnick, Executive Director, Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque, NM
Herbie Hancock, Musician/Chairman, Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz*, Los Angeles, CA
Louis Head, US-Cuba Cultural Exchange, Albuquerque, NM
Oscar Hernandez, Musician/Composer, Los Angeles, CA
Ariana Hernandez-Reguant, Cultural Anthropologist, University of California, San Diego
Gloria Herrera, Attorney/Producer/Presenter, Los Angeles, CA
Danny Hoch, Playwright, Actor, Brooklyn, NY
Marguerite Horberg, Chicago, IL
Ralph Irizarry, Musician & Indie Label Owner, Brooklyn, New York
Suki John, Ph. D., Specialist on Cuban Dance, Ft. Worth, TX
Danny Kapilian, Producer, Brooklyn Academy of Music & National Geographic*, Brooklyn, NY
Mike Kappus, President, The Rosebud Agency, San Francisco, CA
Robert Kraft, President, Fox Music, Los Angeles, CA
Craig Knudsen, President, Knudsen Productions, Berkeley, CA
Alexia Lalli, Heritage and Preservation Consultant, New York, NY
Greg Landau, Musician, Producer & Professor, City College of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Saul Landau, Filmmaker, Alameda, CA
James Lepore, Professor, George Mason University, Arlington, VA
Vivien Lesnik Weisman, Filmmaker, Santa Monica, CA
Sandra Levinson, Director, Cuban Art Space / Center for Cuban Studies, New York, NY
Lee Lockwood, Writer and Journalist, Weston, FL
Alison Loerke, Artist Representative, ALIA Productions, Seattle, WA
Ana Lopez, Professor, Tulane University*, New Orleans, LA
Linda Lucero, Executive/Artistic Director, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, San Francisco, CA
Howard Mandel, Writer/Broadcaster/Educator, Jazz Journalists Association, New York, NY
Ev Mann, Executive Director, Center for Creative Education, Kingston, NY
Dave Marsh, Writer-Broadcaster, Editor, Rock-Rap Confidential, Norwalk, CT
Robert Martin, General Manager, Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Bill Martínez, Arts Immigration Attorney and Presenter, Martínez & Associates, San Francisco, CA
Ivor Miller, Author & Cuban Culture Specialist, Boston University, Cambridge MA
Marilyn Miller, Professor, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Tom Miller, Author, Tucson, AZ
Tom Miller, General Counsel, Send A Piana to Havana, Oakland, CA
Rick Mitchell, Artistic Director, Houston International Festival, Houston, TX
Robin Moore, Associate Professor, University of Texas School of Music, Austin, TX
Kevin Murray, Senior Vice-President, William Morris Agency, Beverly Hills, CA
Lukas Nelson, Musician, Paia, HI
William Ney, Executive Director, UW-Madison Multicultural Arts Inititatives*, Madison, WI
Hilary Noble, Musician, 83 Lyndhurst St., Dorchester, MA
Arturo O’Farrill, Musician & Founder, Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, Brooklyn, NY
Michael Orlove, Senior Program Director, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Chicago, IL
Juan “Papo” Pepin, Master Percussionist, Pepin Productions, Bronx, NY
Wendy Perron, Editor in Chief, Dance Magazine, New York, NY
Scott Price, Artist Manager, OTA Records, Oakland, CA
Dafnis Prieto, Musician, New York, NY
Marc Quiñones, Musician, Q&A Productions/Allman Brothers Band/8yMas, Bronx, NY/New Jersey
Margaret Randall, Poet, Albuquerque, NM
Joe Randel, Director, ArtesAméricas, University of Texas Performing Arts Center, Austin, TX
Raices Collective of KUNM-FM, Albuquerque, NM
Arturo Riera, Chairman of the Board, San Jose Jazz, San Francisco, CA
Ann Rosenthal, Executive Director, MAPP International Productions, New York, NY
Bernard Rubenstein, Conductor, Copland/Gershwin New Music Group, Santa Fe, NM
David Rubinson, Music Producer, San Francisco, CA
Bobby Sanabria, Grammy Nominated Musician & Educator, Manhattan School of Music, New School, Bronx, NY
Alan Roy Scott, Songwriter, Events Producer & Artist, Music Bridges, West Hills, CA
Cynthia Semon, Media Consultant & Promoter, Los Angeles, CA
Lian Calvo Serrano, Booking Agent, Tempest Entertainment, New York, NY
John Sinclair, Poet, Journalist & Broadcaster, Detroit, MI
Bill Smith, Booking Agent, Eye for Talent, San Francisco, CA
Felipe Smith, Professor, Department of English, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
Isabel Soffer, World Music Institute, New York, NY
Vicki Sola, Writer/Broadcaster, Teaneck, NJ
Scott Southard, Director, International Music Network, Gloucester, MA
Patricia Spears Jones, Poet/playwright, Brooklyn, NY
Ned Sublette, Independent Scholar, New York, NY
Clyde Valentin, Executive Director, Hip-Hop Theater Festival, Brooklyn, NY
Manuel Valera, Musician, New York, NY
Jim Wadsworth, Music Promoter, Jim Wadsworth Productions Agency, Cleveland, OH
Jack Walsh, Executive Producer, Celebrate Brooklyn Performing Arts Festival, Brooklyn, NY
Bill Wolfer, Producer/Musician, Palm Springs, CA
Cindi Younker, Director of Programs, Buckman Arts Center, Memphis, TN
Isabel Yrigoyen, Presenter/Producer, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Mark Weinstein, Musician, Glen Ridge, NJ
Erica D. Zielinski, General Manager, Lincoln Center Festival, New York, NY

plus 359 additional signatories online as of January 27, 2009