“As a member of the Board of Supervisors, a healing presence following the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk and as San Francisco Mayor and groundbreaking United States Senator, Dianne Feinstein has been our city’s ambassador to the world and a tireless advocate for our hotel and hospitality workers. Our thoughts are with her family today, and her many close friends from decades of work.” — Alex Bastian, President & CEO Hotel Council of San Francisco
“Dianne Feinstein was an American icon and trailblazer. Working tirelessly with historic preservationists and community leaders during her mayoralty, she ensured the future of San Francisco’s iconic landmarks, like our beloved Cable Car. As a Senator, she continued her love for and dedication to her home town. She has secured her place in the heart of San Francisco.” — Marisa Rodriguez, CEO Union Square Alliance
MEDIA ADVISORY/COVERAGE REQUEST: Saturday, September 23
WHO: The Westin St. Francis, The Aneurysm and AVM Foundation (TAAF), and the Union Square Alliance are hosting
WHAT: “Over the Edge,” a one-of-a-kind event where participants rappel 150 feet down the side of the Westin St. Francis Hotel’s 14-story Landmark Building on Union Square.
WHEN: Saturday, September 23 8am – 5pm
WHERE: Westin St. Francis Hotel Union Square San Francisco
WHY: The goal of the event is to raise $100,000 for life-saving research for brain aneurysms, AVM, and stroke awareness.
Larissa FastHorse’s THE THANKSGIVING PLAY Kicks Off 16th Season for Dezart Performs of Palm Springs November 3 – 12
FastHorse is the first Native American playwright to have a show produced on Broadway
18 September 2023 – Palm Springs, CA: Four well-intentioned but terminally “woke” theatre artists meet in the rehearsal room at an elementary school to create a pageant that will somehow celebrate both Turkey Day and honor Native American Heritage Month. What could go wrong? The question should probably be a statement of “nothing goes right” in THE THANKSGIVING PLAY by Larissa FastHorse which opens Dezart Performs 16th Season, November 3 – 12. FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) is the first Native American woman to have a show produced on Broadway.
“Whether you lean blue, red or somewhere closer to purple, you can’t help but see a little of ourselves in this fiercely funny comedy,” says director and Dezart Performs founding artistic director Michael Shaw. “It should leave everyone, at the very least, re-examining our good intentions, but also very sore from all the self-reflective laughter it inspires.”
“If everybody loved my work, I’d be really bummed out because I wouldn’t feel like I’m doing my job right,” said FastHorse in an interview. “To acknowledge indigenous culture and history in this nation, we have to acknowledge complicity. You’re on stolen land, however you got here.”
Working through such “complicity” is at the heart of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY with hilarious, and often very tongue-in-cheek pointed jabs at our current “PC washing” of culture and the preponderous of “wokeness” in the political realm.
“Oh my Goddess,” screams the vegan director Logan (Macy Idzakovich) when she learns of her erroneous assumption about the actress, Alicia (Stepania Gonzales) who has been brought in from LA to perform in the pageant. Logan is already on tender hooks with the school’s parents for her direction of “The Iceman Cometh” with 15-year-olds. Vegan ally and yoga guru street performer Jaxton (Matthew Grondin) – who nonetheless prefers real cheese from a cow on his crackers – and would-be playwright Caden (John Wuchte) do their best in an attempt to create a politically sensitive holiday play They end up with a story that is anything but sensitive and does perhaps more damage than good to the history they are trying to correct.
All performances take place at the Pearl McManus Theater (at the historic Palm Springs Woman’s Club) 314 S Cahuilla Road, Downtown Palm Springs. Ticket prices are $48 – $55 and may be purchased online at www.dezartperforms.org , or by calling (760) 322-0179. Showtimes are Fridays at 7:30pm; Saturdays at 2pm and 7:30pm; Sundays at 2pm and 7pm.
Dezart Performs, one of the Coachella Valley’s preeminent theatre companies recognizes that the performing arts enrich the life and culture of a community, promote greater understanding and provoke insightful discussion. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theatre company, its mission is to provide an artistic home for bold and cutting–edge plays, creating an atmosphere of artistic growth for actors, writers, and directors who uniquely contribute to the diverse theatrical environment in the Coachella Valley.
16th Dezart Performs’ Season Listing
THE THANKSGIVING PLAY
A comedy written by Larissa FastHorse
Directed by Michael Shaw November 3-5; 10-12, 2023
Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse’s wickedly funny satire, as a troupe of terminally “woke” teaching artists scrambles to create a pageant that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month.
“Hilarious. A cheerfully cutthroat production!”
– The New York Times
“Hysterically funny and brutally on target.”
– Forbes
“A hilarious envelope in which [the playwright] delivers a brutal satire about mythmaking, and thus, in a way, about theater itself.”
– The New York Times
Top left: Macy Idzakovich Top right: Matthew Grondin Bottom left: John Wuchte Bottom right: Stepania Gonzales
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WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME
A dramatic comedy written by Heidi Schreck
Directed by Craig Wells January 19 – 21; 26 – 28
2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist
2019 Tony Award nominated, Best Play
2019 Obie award for Best New American Play
2019 Off-Broadway Alliance Award, Best New Play 2019 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Play
Fifteen-year-old Heidi earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives.
“…brilliantly crafted show, harrowing and funny and humane, that accesses the political through the deeply personal.”
– New York Magazine
“A highly entertaining, deeply informative and ultimately hopeful examination of the document that impacts every single one of us, every single day of our lives.”
–Chicago Sun Times
“This funny, tragic and deeply unsettling one-woman tour de force shows who the US constitution serve — and who it lets down.” – The Guardian
* * *
A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
A drama written by Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Michael Shaw March 1-3; 8-10
2022 Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play
A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD unfolds in a cubicle where two seated people unexpectedly choose to bring one another into their fragile worlds. Keith, a mortgage broker, and Ryan, a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that belonged to his family many decades ago, realize they share a “specific kind of sadness.” At this desk in the middle of America, loan talk opens up into a discussion about the chokehold of financial insecurity and a bond over the precariousness of parenthood. With humor, empathy and wrenching honesty, Hunter commingles two lives and deftly bridges disparate experiences of marginality.
“Must-see heartbreaker of a play!”
– The New York Times
“Another extraordinary play by Samuel D. Hunter!”
– New York Stage Review
“Easily one of the best of the year!”
–The Wall Street Journal
“…one of the most moving new plays of the year!”
– TheatreMania
“‘A Case for the Existence of God’ Finds What Connects Us All and Holiness in Humanity.”
–The Observer
* * *
MR. PARKER
A drama written by Michael McKeever
Directed by Randy Brenner April 12 – 14; 19 — 21
At 54 years old, Terry Parker finds himself at a crossroads in his life. After the loss of his partner of 30 years, he finds himself suddenly single and unable to adjust to a world that has moved on without him. After a night of heavy drinking, he wakes up with a 28-year-old bartender-slash-Uber-driver. These two very different people begin a tentative relationship, and what starts out as a one-night stand becomes a journey of self-discovery for a man trying to let go of the past and move forward, while dealing with the pressures of being middle-aged, gay and alone in the ever-changing landscape of today’s America.
“A very intelligent, absorbing look at contemporary relationships and the conflicts that keep us all from aging with joy and peace of mind. This play is a real discovery!”
– Rex Reed
“The protagonist of this new play by Michael McKeever steps gingerly out of grief’s stasis and into the unknown.” –The New York Times
Sharing LGBTQ Heritage Through Public Artwork and Historic Markers
October 15 Panel “Using the Outdoors to Out LGBTQ History” Brings Activists & Experts Together for Inaugural Circa Queer Histories Festival Marking LGBTQ History Month and ONE Institute’s 70th Anniversary
15 September 2023—Los Angeles CA: We’re here, we’re queer and we’re outdoors, artful and historic! On Sunday, October 15 (3pm – 4:30pm) at the Los Angeles LGBT Center (1125 N. McCadden Place, Los Angeles), LGBTQ History Month and ONE Institute’s 70th Anniversary is given voice and presence with the FREE panel “Using the Outdoors to Out LGBTQ History.” The discussion with queer heritage conservationists, public historians, and community activists explores the crucial link between plaques, memorials, and memory markers of historic LGBTQ sites with the growth of a strong, thriving queer community. This panel is one of 70 such events across Los Angeles in honor of ONE Institute’s landmark anniversary during the month-long Circa Queer Histories Festival. The event is free, but advance registration is required by going to the following link: https://circafestival.org/event/using-the-outdoors-to-out-lgbtq-history/
Panelists include:
Justin Estoque —executive with the Autry Museum of the American West, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, and the National LGBT Museum in NYC (retired).
Rafael Fontes — preservation planner with the Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources whose graduate work at USC’s School of Architecture explored the first efforts to landmark LA’s historic LGBTQ sites.
Dr. Gayle Rubin — author, scholar and cofounder of the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District and the SF South of Market Leather History Alley public art installation.
Shayne Watson — architectural heritage historian, co-author of Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco, founder of the “Friends of Lyon-Martin House” committee.
Barbara Tannenbaum — moderator and event organizer, arts and culture journalist, and former vice president and board member of San Francisco’s Rainbow Honor Walk.
With special video presentations by:
• Ken Lustbader, co-founder and co-director of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project explains how to cut through red tape when seeking heritage preservation status for LGBTQ landmarks
• Eric Marcus, NY-based author and executive producer of the “Making Gay History” podcast reveals the Talking Statue installation at the Stonewall National Monument
• Dr. Tim Seelig, conductor laureate of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, will show the Artists Portal and Emperor Chime in San Francisco’s National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park
