Excerpts, talkbacks and Q&A with special guests
providing health and healing education and advocacy.

Wednesday December 16 at 7:30pm

Unique Derique
aka Lance McGee

When not bringing joy to all ages as a professional clown, his alter-ego Lance McGee is a Trauma-Informed Wellness Consultant, Drama Therapist, and Mindfulness Coach providing support to Oakland middle-school educators, administrators, staff, and students. Lance’s work also includes training SFJazz teaching artists and other educators who work with middle school youth, as well as leading workshops on recognizing trauma-informed care practices and mindfulness for non-profit organizations, health clinics, colleges and educational systems throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. His past also includes school-based counseling for the East Bay Agency for Children, as well as work with the Mindful Life Project.

Watch Below

ABOUT THE PERFORMER

Bay Area favorite  Unique Derique is a Bay Area fixture whose dual careers merge the performing arts and healing with the belief that the world can be a brighter place, one breath—and one laugh—at a time. 

His artistic side comes out to play as internationally-acclaimed Clown Prince Unique Derique, whose performances have included South Africa, Scotland, Taipei, London, Paris, and Tokyo. With television credits including It’s Showtime at the Apollo, the Disney Channel, KQED’s Spark, Univision’s Sábado Gigante Internacional, and KQED’s Emmy-winning show Short Stories and Tall Tales, Unique Derique has shared the stage with entertainers such as Bobby McFerrin, The Temptations, Laura Nyro, Tuck and Patti, Lou Rawls, and Sammy Davis, Jr.  His clowny past includes stints with Berkeley’s Circus A La Mode and the famed Pickle Family Circus. This multi-talented artist’s experience also includes serving as Program Director for Circus Arts Camp at Children’s Fairyland, artist-in-residence with Prescott Circus Theatre, and as a performer with Bread and Roses Presents. His show Fool La La has played regularly at The Marsh Theatre since 2015, usually with a delightfully different twist in each season’s version. 

Described as “exhilarating,” the San Francisco Examiner has said of Derique, “he leaves them laughing coast to coast.” Hailed by The New York Times for his Hambone skill, he has also been lauded by the San Francisco Chronicle, who declared, “Derique will be back… remember the name.”  

To cap off this most unusual year of 2020 amidst a worldwide pandemic that has forced us to maintain physical distance, wear masks, and take to our computers for virtual learning, work, and connection, you’re invited to zoom along with Unique Derique this season in Fool La La: Home for the Holidaze for a zany at-home virtual holiday celebration full of technological mishaps and merry mayhem that prove being apart doesn’t mean we can’t have fun together! After the show, keep the virtual celebration going with a free hambone and juggling workshop for all ages. 

There will be a special MarshStream Solo Performance Spotlight streaming performance of Fool La La: Home for the Holidaze on Sunday, December 27 at 2:00pm, with proceeds to benefit The Marsh. 

For info and bookings for
Unique Derique / Lance McGee contact: uniquederique@gmail.com 

ABOUT SOLO ARTS HEAL

Solo performers present real-life, empowering stories. Transformative experiences for audiences. A theater of resilience that celebrates overcoming mental and physical life challenges and offers hope and inspiration. SOLO ARTS HEAL includes excerpts, talkbacks, and Q&A that provide education and advocacy. Readings or clips of performances will be shared by artists in conversation with Gail Schickele, whose work as a manager and producer of solo artists inspired collaboration of performing arts presenters with artists on a medical track based on their personal experience. The collective creative vision? To help communities through educational outreach and the healing power of the Arts. 

About the Host

Gail Schickele (Host) champions arts & sciences taking her left and right brain wherever she travels. As an arts manager, consultant, and producer dba SAGE Artists, she convened an ‘Arts Heals’ group of solo artists at APAP 2020 whose unique stories of physical and mental challenges evince the healing power of The Arts.  The COVID lockdown inspired Stephanie Weisman to create SOLO ARTS HEAL to share these outstanding stories of resilience, dramatic and comedic, for the entertainment and benefit of communities everywhere. Gail’s expertise in marketing, management, booking and production has served various theaters, festivals and events nationwide. Trained as a journalist in New York and Colorado, Gail has covered Colorado state politics and the environmental landscape of the Rockies. Environmental science inspires her educational and advocacy work in California with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, and for the League of Women Voters for which she’s worked as an administrator and reporter on environmental issues Including legislation, climate science outreach, and co-chair of an environmental speakers series. Gail is honored to host SOLO ARTS HEAL where artists powerful stories offer audiences great performance and ‘informance’ on issues related to health and the environment, inexorably linked.


Back to Solo Arts Heal Homepage