AfroSolo Arts Festival “Let Freedom Ring” (Oct. 25-27)

AfroSolo Theatre Company

What: AfroSolo Arts Festival presents: Let Freedom Ring!

When: Friday and Saturday, October 25 & 26, 2024, 7pm and Sunday, October 27, 2024, 3 pm.

Where: Playground Theatre, 1695 – 18th Street, San Francisco, CA

Cost: In-person and Live Streamed:   

For more info and tickets visit: bit.ly/3Y5mML0   

We cordially invite you to experience this exhilarating program by the AfroSolo Theatre Company, a haven for Black arts, culture, intellect, and entertainment! We welcome back all former patrons and invite new audience members to come and experience our ingenuity.

Featuring:

Laura Elaine Ellis, dancer, performs A Black Woman’s Truth, a spoken word essay written and recorded by San Francisco Bay View Hunters Point resident  and community activist Toni Hines. The essay explores the depth, breath and experience of being a Black woman in the United States. A Black Woman’s Truth is a joyful response to the constant pressure Black women face to be resilient to the stress and strains they face while living in America.

Ellis is the co-founder and Director of the African & African American Performing Arts Coalition and co-presenter of the Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now (BCF).” Her work has been recognized by the State of California and the Alameda Arts Commission for preserving African American art and culture. Laura is an AfroSolo alum and performs and choreographs with Dimensions Dance Theater and Flyaway Productions. She also serves as the community outreach coordinator and co-curator for the SF Dance Film Festival and Raising Voices program.

Marcus J. Paige performs San Francisco, Variations on Black Joy, White Supremacy and Hope! written and directed by AfroSolo Artistic/Executive Director. Thomas Robert Simpson 

Based on a true San Francisco experience, the story explores the joy, racial turmoil, and boundless hope experienced in one day. Untimely it is a story of  love, challenge and triumph of the human spirit. Paige is also a veteran AfroSolo artist with many stage, film and TV credits locally and nationally. 

Augustene Phillips will read three stories from her upcoming biography, The Life and Times of Augustene Phillips. In the stories will be wisdom on parade as Phillips shares the history, joy and hilarity of falling in love with her late husband of sixty-one years, her first day of school  in a one room classroom more than seventy years ago in small Arkansas town and her profound declaration that I Am The Goat! (The Greatest of All Time!) Phillips has grace, clarity and charm that will spark both youth and elders the befits of a first time writer in her senior years. 

William Underwood, III, flutist, will perform a diverse concert featuring classical as, well as original soul and jazz music. Underwood has garnered praise and acclaim for his outstanding performances. This is a great opportunity to see Underwood as he use this intimate performance as a springboard toward a solo career and guest appearances in San Francisco and abroad.  Underwood holds a Bachelor of Science in Music and Master of Music in Flute Performance degrees from Florida A&M University and Wayne State University, respectively. Underwood has has toured Japan extensively with Kyoto, Tokyo Incorporated and regularly work as a solo, collaborative, and recording flutist.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.