Ping Chong, Randy Gener & More Join Theatre of the Voiceless Festival, 6/16-19

Documentary theater possesses a unique ability to respond to issues of pressing political import and social justice, and provides a platform and voice for the dispossessed. "Theater of the Voiceless" - an international symposium and festival produced by Zeitgeist DC (Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, Goethe-Institut Washington and the Embassy of Switzerland) and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University - takes place June 16 - 19, 2013 at various venues around Washington, DC.

A centerpiece of "Theater of the Voiceless" - led by festival artistic director Gillian Drake - is a daylong symposium that will be held from 11 am to 10 pm on Monday, June 17th 2013 at Georgetown University, Davis Performing Arts Center (37th and O Streets NW, Washington, DC).
To RSVP and for more information, visit www.zeitgeistdc.org.

The symposium will begin with a presentation by Ping Chong and Bruce Allardice of Ping Chong + Company, from its Undesirable Elements series of community-based oral histories.

Global migration challenges, government-sponsored genocide, terrorism and other manmade disasters that permanently alter our world view - these universal topics are addressed in non-fiction plays by playwrights interested in using their art for social change: Konradin Kunze and Sophia Stepf (Germany), Milo Rau (Swiss founder of the International Institute of Political Murder), and Kathrin Röggla (Austria).
Two panel discussions featuring artistic leaders, artists, and cultural and political experts from the United States and Europe will focus on the power of documentary theater to effect social change. The afternoon panel discussion, "Documentary Theater: Creative Approaches", will be moderated by Randy Gener, the Nathan Award-winning editor/writer of Critical Stages and founder of TheaterofOneWorld.org. It will include Doug Wager (Artistic Director and Head of Directing for Temple University), Chris Jennings (Managing Director, The Shakespeare Theatre Company), David Snider (Director of Artistic Programming, Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater), and Konradin Kunze (Playwright, a small, small world). They will discuss the research, creative process and staging of documentary plays and their many forms.

In the evening, after the staged reading of Swiss playwright Milo Rau's Hate Radio, Professor Cynthia Schneider, Co-Founder of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, will moderate "Documentary Theater: Implications for Policy and Post-Conflict Reconciliation," a panel focusing on how theater and performance can serve as tools for diplomacy. This panel features Ping Chong, policy expert Michael Pelletier (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in Bureau of African Affairs in the U.S. Department of State), Randy Gener, and Eva-Maria Bertschy (Dramaturg, International Institute of Political Murder).

The staged readings of a small, small world will be directed by Serge Seiden (The Studio Theatre), and include cast members Maboud Ebrahimzadeh and Jonathan Feuer.

The staged readings of Worst Case will be directed by Jenny Lord (The Shakespeare Theatre Company), and will include cast members Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey, Heather Haney, Joe Mallon, Max Reinhardsen, Michael Rudko, and Emily Townley.

The staged reading of Hate Radio will be directed by Derek Goldman (The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University), and will include cast members Caroline Clay, Crashonda Edwards, Rick Foucheux, Kenyatta Rogers, ERIKA ROSE, Joshua Street, Baakari Wilder, and Michael Anthony Williams.

Details and Reservations: www.zeitgeistdc.org