Excerpts, talkbacks and Q&A with special guests
providing health and healing education and advocacy.
Wednesday
March 17, 2021 at 7:30pm
Heather Harpham
Burning
BURNING is a highly kinetic, semi-comic romp through the absurd landscapes of climate change where comedy, tragedy, activism and cautious optimism collide. Using movement, song, monologue, and otherworldly images — the piece pings between Hurricane Sandy, our obsession with apocalyptic movies, NPR’s narcoleptic effect, and the million trivial tasks that preoccupy us while Rome burns.
Watch Below
“Heather Harpham pulls back the veil of denial we cling to, which allows us to believe our over consumptive use of the planet’s resources are acceptable” – Broadway World
ABOUT THE PERFORMER
Heather Harpham is writer and theater artist, originally from the Bay Area, whose theatrical work has been presented at venues across the US and internationally at the Kathmandu International Theater Festival and in Estonia at the Notafe Festival. Harpham’s 2017 memoir, Happiness, was chosen for Barnes and Noble’s Discover Great New Writers Series; included on the “Indie Next Pick” list by the American Booksellers Association; a Reese Witherspoon Bookclub selection; and is currently being adapted for the screen. Her fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in Slate, Parents, MORE Magazine, Water~Stone Review and Red Magazine in the UK.
Harpham’s writing has been recognized with the Brenda Ueland Prose Prize, a Marin Arts Council Independent Artist Grant, support from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, and a New York Innovative Theater Award nomination. She has taught as a guest artist at colleges and universities throughout the US and in Europe and currently advises in the MFA Writing Program at the Sarah Lawrence College.
PRESS
ABOUT SOLO ARTS HEAL
SOLO ARTS HEAL, a weekly MarshStream Public Broadcast Platform program, presents empowering performances about healing and resilience. Through hosted interviews, talkbacks and audience Q&A, the Solo Arts Heal program provides transformative experiences, education, community outreach and advocacy through stories that celebrate the healing power of the arts.
About the Hosts
Stephanie Weisman founded and has been the Artistic/Executive Director of The Marsh since its inception in 1989. Under her leadership, The Marsh has grown from a one-night-a-week performance series to producing 600-700 shows annually on its four stages. In addition to its developing work performance series, The Marsh’s programs include: artist-in-residencies, after-school and summer workshops for youth both onsite and in 5 SFUSD, and performance development classes, workshops and Performance Initiatives. In 1996 Stephanie spearheaded the drive to successfully buy their 12,000 sq ft facility on Valencia Street in San Francisco. This increased The Marsh’s programs four-fold as well as provided for a stable Bay Area arts organization. In 2010, The Marsh added a second venue in Berkeley. In 2020, Stephanie initiated MarshStream. She is currently at work developing her opera, Aphrodisia, with dancer, Wei Wang
Gail Schickele champions arts & sciences as a writer, speaker, consultant, and producer. In January 2020 she convened an artist collective to assist solo artists whose unique stories of physical and mental challenges manifest the healing power of The Arts. COVID inspired Stephanie Weisman to create SOLO ARTS HEAL on The MarshStream to share these outstanding stories of resilience, dramatic and comedic, for the entertainment and benefit of communities everywhere. Gail’s work in marketing, management, and production has served various theaters, festivals and events nationwide. Trained as a journalist in New York and Colorado, she has covered Colorado state politics and the environmental landscape of the Rockies. Environmental educational and advocacy work in California includes the League of Women Voters and The Climate Reality Project. Gail is honored to curate and host SOLO ARTS HEAL where artists powerful stories offer audiences great performance and ‘informance’ on issues related to health and the environment, inexorably linked.
Kristin Scheel, has worked in production and development at The Marsh since 2018. She is a freelance writer and member of Open Windows art cooperative in the Bayview. She has a background in social work with the State of Oregon and program management experience as a small business owner and preschool director in San Francisco. She has an MFA from Mills College, and serves on the boards of Guerrilla Cartography and PATHSTAR.