ELEVATE: Conversations

2019 UCLA TFT FILM FESTIVAL

5 p.m. June 7, 2018
<H2>James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television</H2>
<H2>ELEVATE: Conversations</H2>
<H3>Our inaugural ELEVATE event, Conversations, features Shirley Jo Finney and Jayongela Wilder, M.F.A., Theater Directing, along with cast from Wilder’s senior thesis production, In the Red and Brown Water, in a wide-ranging discussion about creative stories and scholarly works authored and performed by women and persons of color.</H3>
The panel discussion will be moderated by Los Angeles Times journalist Tre’vell Anderson, and will be preceded by a live performance from Wilder’s direction of In the Red and Brown Water.
 
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In 1973, Shirley Jo Finney became the first black female to graduate with and MFA in Directing from the UCLA Department of Theater. Forty-five years later, she will be joined by Jayongela Wilder who will become the second upon her graduation from the program this year. Both Finney and Wilder are multi-hyphenate talents, acting, directing and writing in both theater and film. Both directed In the Red and Brown Water, written by the Academy Award-winning writer of Moonlight, Tarell Alvin McCraney for the stage. They will bring together past and present as they discuss their respective experiences at UCLA, directing In the Red and Brown Water for the stage, and their artistic visions and goals as black female storytellers. 
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Jayongela Wilder is a third-year MFA Directing candidate from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, Jayongela directed the premiere production of In the Red and Brown Water by fellow New World School of the Arts alumnus and Academy Award-winner Tarell Alvin McCraney. 
Jayongela earned her BFA in Theater with emphasis in Musical Theater at University of Florida. In 2017, she received a full scholarship to study acting with emphasis on Shakespeare at the British American Drama Academy at Magdelen College, Oxford in Oxford, England. 
At UCLA, Jayongela has won the Dean Teri Schwartz Family and Friends Scholarship, the Jack Oakie Memorial Award, the Reach for the Stars Award, and the George Burns and Gracie Allen Scholarship and Fellowship in Comedy. She is currently working on her documentary film, Hammering the Skins, which feature female drummers and how they navigate through today’s music.
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ABOUT ELEVATE
ELEVATE is a student-run organization within the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television (UCLA TFT) dedicated to celebrating the voiced and diverse contributions of women and multicultural filmmakers, actors, theater practitioners and scholars. Committed to exposing the UCLA student body and the surrounding community to wealth of creative stories and scholarly works authored or performed by women and persons of color, the organization is sponsored and supported by UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Dean Teri Schwartz.

James Bridges Theater

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ELEVATE: Conversations

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