Art

Actors’ Gang brings social studies lessons to life

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — After studying Mesopotamia for six weeks, Natalie Gualtieri’s sixth grade social studies class stepped out of the classrooms and onto the proverbial stage when the Actors’ Gang visited Culver City Middle School recently.

Published

6 years ago

January 6, 2019

Oakland Post

By Wave Staff

CULVER CITY — After studying Mesopotamia for six weeks, Natalie Gualtieri’s sixth grade social studies class stepped out of the classrooms and onto the proverbial stage when the Actors’ Gang visited Culver City Middle School recently.

Four company members from the Actors’ Gang, who work as teaching artists with the group’s Education Department, integrated themselves into the Culver City Middle School unit on Mesopotamia.

As class began, the Actors’ Gang instructors introduced themselves, Adam, Luis, Emily and Paulette, and established some agreements. After leading the students through some tried and true theater warm-up exercises, the Gang launched into the subject matter.

“You be the teachers,” they said to the students. “Pretend we know nothing about Mesopotamia. Educate us.”

The students called out four main subjects: The Standard of Ur, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Hammurabi’s Code, Mesopotamian Empires. While those are colorful names on paper, they really came to life when the Actors’ Gang got involved and prompted the students to fill in more details about each subject: “polytheism,” “Superman,” “an eye for an eye,” “early technology.”

After the students clued in the instructors with more details on Mesopotamian history, they broke up into four groups to create living tableaus about each subject. One instructor guided each group to write, cast and rehearse a vignette about their subject — on the spot. Then each group presented their tableau to their fellow classmates, who acted as audience members and critics.

The students who were in the audience made observations about their classmates and the material they were being taught. Between the students teaching, acting, watching and providing feedback, Mesopotamian history was imprinted and reinforced with them students in ways that go beyond what they can learn from books.

“When studying history we forget that they were real people with real emotions,” Adam Jefferis, the Actors’ Gang associate director of education, told the students. “Can you imagine what it was like to live during this time?”

Gualtieri beamed with excitement during the class.

“The kids love it,” she said. “They are just ecstatic. I have one student who really comes to life so much more than in the regular classroom. I bet these students are going to do well on their tests next week.”

Sixth grader Makenzie McCullen praised the experience.

“Working with the Actors’ Gang helped me remember the material, because we were learning it in such a fun and interesting way. This made me feel interested in the story.”

The Actors’ Gang is part of Culver City Unified School District’s Front & Center Theatre Collaborative, which provides theater arts curriculum. The collaborative is a unique partnership that brings together teaching artists from professional theater groups with local funding partners to create an unparalleled collective impact — the highest concentration of theater arts programming per student in any Los Angeles County school district.

As one of the collaborative’s six arts partners, the Actors’ Gang Education Department provides free after-school programs to all five elementary schools and Culver City Middle School, and in-school programs at Culver City Middle School, Culver City High School and Culver Park High School.

Through this program, The Actors’ Gang works with every sixth grade student at Culver City Middle School, including the Spanish immersion students who are taught in Spanish. Each class receives two visits per year from the Actors’ Gang.

So, how did Gualtieri’s class do on their test?

“The kids did a great job!” Gualtieri said. “Better, in general, than the first two units on geography and early man. I do attribute it to the Actors’ Gang, and having the students act out the different concepts and elements of Mesopotamia. They did especially well with Hammurabi’s Code of Laws.

“Almost all students answered the questions on that section of the test correctly. Aside from all this, they did a wonderful job participating with the Actors’ Gang, and were truly inspired.”

The Actors’ Gang will be back in the spring to bring another period of history to life with the sixth grade, this time in Ancient Greece.

This article originally appeared in Wave Newspapers.

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Activism

Griot Theater Company Presents August Wilson’s Work at Annual Oratorical Featuring Black Authors

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Published

3 months ago

February 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Late playwright August Wilson. Wikipedia photo.

By Godfrey Lee

Griot Theater Company will present their Fifth Annual Oratorical with August Wilson’s “Half a Century,” at the Belrose on 1415 Fifth Ave., in San Rafael near the San Rafael Public Library.

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20^th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Previous performance highlighting essential Black American authors included Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry with Langston Hughes.

The play will be performed at 3:00. p.m. on Feb. 20, 21, 22, 27, and 28 at 7:00 p.m., and on Feb. 23 at 3:00 p.m.

For more information, go to griottheatercompany.squarespace.com/productions-v2

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Activism

MLK Day of Service Volunteers Make Blankets and Art for Locals in Need

“Everyone has an opportunity to participate,” said Glenda Roberts, kinship support care program manager at CCYSB. “Our nonprofit organization and participants recognize how important it is to give back to the community and this is serving. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, ‘Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.’”

Published

4 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of the nonprofit.

By Kathy Chouteau
The Richmond Standard

The Contra Costa Youth Service Bureau (CCYSB) and Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church (BMBC) are collaborating with a team of volunteers for a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 20 that will wrap the community’s most vulnerable people in warm blankets and provide them with an uplifting gift of art.

Volunteers will kick off their activities at BMBC at 11 a.m., making blankets for the unhoused people served by the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP) and art for those in convalescence in Richmond.

Others will get to work preparing a lunch of chili, salad, a veggie tray, and water for participants, offered courtesy of CCYSB, while supplies last.

“People of all ages are welcome to participate in the MLK Day of Service,” said Roberts. Volunteers can RSVP via phone to Glenda Roberts at 510-215-4670, ext. 125.

CCYSB Boardmember Jackie Marston and her friends donated the materials and supplies to make the blankets and art projects. The nonprofit is also providing the day’s complimentary lunch, as well as employees to volunteer, under the direction of CCYSB Executive Director Marena Brown.

BMBC, led by Rev. Dr. Carole McKindley-Alvarez, is providing the facility for the event and volunteers from the church, which is located at 684 Juliga Woods St. in Richmond.

Located in Richmond, CCYSB is a nonprofit youth advocacy organization that serves eligible children, youth, and low-income families with a variety of wraparound services so they can thrive. Programs include academic achievement, youth mentorship, truancy prevention and direct response.

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Art

Vandalism at Richmond Ferry Terminal Saddens Residents

Residents have been lamenting the destruction online. Ellen Seskin posted photos of the vandalism to the Facebook group, Everybody’s Richmond, on Jan. 12, saying she encountered it while out on a walk. “It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

Published

4 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Graffiti mars the walkway at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Photo by Kathy Chouteau, The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” stated the post on NextDoor.

The post referenced images of graffiti at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Not just on the terminal, but also on public artwork, on trail signs, on public benches and the boardwalk.

On Wednesday, the Standard stopped by to see it for ourselves. The good news was that it appears the graffiti on the terminal and on the artwork, called Changing Tide, have been cleaned for the most part. But graffiti remained abundant in the area around the relatively new ferry terminal, which opened to the public just six years ago.

Graffiti artists tagged benches and the boardwalk. Cars that had done doughnuts in the street marked the cul-de-sac just outside the historic Craneway Pavilion.

A ferry worker told us the graffiti had been there since before he started working for the ferry service about a week ago.

A member of the Army Corps of Engineers who did not want to be named in this report called the scene “sad,” as “they’d done such a nice job fixing it up.”

“It’s sad that all this money has been spent and hoodlums just don’t care and are destroying stuff,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how soon the graffiti would be removed. The Standard reported the graffiti to the city’s graffiti abatement hotline. We were prompted to leave a message reporting the address and location of the graffiti.

“It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

In the comment section responding to Seskin’s post, local attorney Daniel Butt questioned why there aren’t cameras in the area.

On Nextdoor, one resident suggested searching to see if the tags match any accounts on Instagram, hoping to identify the perpetrator.

On its website, the City of Richmond says residents should graffiti immediately call Public Works graffiti removal and/or Code Enforcement at 510-965-4905.

Kathy Chouteau contributed to this report.