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THEATER & CIVIL RIGHTS 60-second stories sort through tragedies OSF's Alick heads to St. Louis to help produce 90 minute-long plays inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement Comment By John Darling For the Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Oct. 18, 2015 at 1:02 PM Updated Oct 19, 2015 at 12:00 PM By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Oct. 18, 2015 at 1:02 PM Updated Oct 19, 2015 at 12:00 PM » Social News Claudia Alick remembers when she had her “Ferguson moment.” It was watching the civil uproar after Michael Brown, a 19-year-old unarmed black man, was shot dead by a policeman in Ferguson, Mo., a city of 21,200 people on the northwest side of St. Louis, on Aug. 9, 2014. In that moment, Alick, a producer with Oregon Shakespeare Festival, joined scores of other dramatic artists around the country who connected on the Internet and decided to produce 90 one-minute plays to both capture a historic time in the civil rights movement and to help inform and guide the nation on where to go, moving onward from the Ferguson tragedy and the riots that followed. Alick put together a nationwide group of 45 playwrights, 30 theaters and 19 actor-directors, funded it with $5,000 from Indiegogo and will meet up with them Tuesday, Oct. 20, in St. Louis for the writing of 90 nano-dramas that will be presented on stage four days later at Ferguson’s community center. With the One-Minute Play Festival (#1MPF), OSF is coproducing “Every 28 Hours” as part of its American Revolutions cycle, she says, but it’s Alick’s thing — and she’s already been to Ferguson to meet with some of the producers and artists who will put it together. Alick organized eager participants by starting a Facebook page, blog (www.thefergusonmoment.com) and hashtag (#TheFergusonMoment) — and inviting all participants to share their thoughts, visions and experiences during the past year, which, she adds, has been a major new chapter in the civil rights movement that created changes in the law and society a half a century ago. In a broad network inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement springing out of the death of Treyvon Martin in Florida, and deaths due to police action in Ferguson and Baltimore, participants have taken up the cry of “Every 28 Hours.” That's how often a black person is killed by police, vigilantes or security guards, according to a study by the Malcom X Grassroots Movement of deaths in 2012. More than 1,000 artists, Alick and Megan Sandberg-Zakian write in the Ferguson Theater Syllabus, are now collaborating to create “art in resonance with this moment in American history. The breadth and depth of artistic actions around the country is inspiring. From new play commissions to community conversations, from guerrilla street performances to casts of Off-Broadway plays standing in solidarity at curtain call, theatre artists and institutions around the nation are stepping forward to join the new civil rights movement ...." The syllabus, she notes, is a crowd-sourced list of connections and a platform asking for “plays that provide opportunities for conversation around this historical moment.” It calls for people to comment on and introduce existing plays “to amplify often silenced voices.” The first phase of the project is community meetings, collaborative writing sessions and readings of plays in St. Louis from Tuesday through Saturday, Oct. 24, says an OSF statement. Readings will be produced Saturday at 2 p.m. Ferguson and at at 8 p.m. at the Kranzberg Arts Center in St. Louis. The plays will be produced or read by participants in educational or other settings around the country afterward. A video will be posted on the Internet. Co-creator of the project is Dominic D’Andrea, producing artistic director of the One Minute Play Festival. He notes, “It’s is an exciting and necessary project to be doing at this place and time. The deep injustices that marginalized populations face in this country are staggering — and no place better represents this tension than in Ferguson. As artists we felt it was our responsibility to create an artistic space to respond to questions of race, injustice, and civic responsibility on a local and national platform.” John Darling is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected]. By John Darling For the Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Oct. 18, 2015 at 1:02 PM Updated Oct 19, 2015 at 12:00 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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