Excerpts, talkbacks and Q&A with special guests
providing health and healing education and advocacy.
Wednesday
February 3, 2021 at 7:30pm
The Actual Dance
by Samuel A. Simon
Excerpts from The Actual Dance, the real-life story of a husband finding the strength and beauty as his wife’s love partner and care partner as they anticipate an unhappy ending to her breast cancer. He searches for an answer to, “How can I do what I know I have to do?” The show has a happy ending. It is a love story, about what love really means. Audiences laugh, cry, and then cheer. It has been touring for seven years with performances throughout the US and internationally.
Watch Below
ABOUT THE PERFORMER
Samuel A Simon describes The Actual Dance work as his “fourth age.” He comes to it after a career in America’s consumer movement. Trained as a lawyer, he was one of the original lawyers for Ralph Nader 1970. A DC public affairs professional, he has appeared on Oprah Winfrey, Face The Nation and other shows. Sam is trained in improv as a student of Gary Austin, Jeffery Sweet, and Carol Fox Prescott. Sam began his work on The Actual Dance in 2012. He has performed the show now hundreds of time around the world.
https://theactualdance.weebly.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 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 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.