The 3rd Annual Speech is not Free Festival

October 1st, 2016 at The Henry Miller Memorial Library

Door 6:30 PM

Show 7:30 PM

Come join us in a benefit for Big Sur’s own literary press: Ping-Pong Free Press, published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library. The evening will feature a poetry reading by Brenda Coultas; a staged reading of Henry Miller and Anais Nin’s more salacious writing entitled Miller Out Loud! featuring local actors portraying the roles of Henry, June, Anais and Rimbaud. Chicago musician and Library friend extraordinaire, Al Rose, who just dropped a critically acclaimed CD entitled, Spin Spin Dizzy will close out the evening with a musical set featuring songs that put the free in free speech. Please join us in this celebration, because we believe that without free speech there can be no human rights. Doors open at 6:30, program begins at 7:30.

Poetry Reading by Brenda Coultas

Miller Out Loud, staged reading

Al Rose in performance

___________________________

Brenda Coultas is the author of four poetry collections, including The Tatters (Wesleyan University Press, 2014), The Marvelous Bones of Time (Coffee House Press, 2008), and A Handmade Museum (Coffee House Press, 2003). Her honors include a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and residencies from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, Italy, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.

Al Rose is a striking songwriter and musician with a unique and powerful vision that continues with his seventh and latest release (2016), “Spin Spin Dizzy”. His previous albums have received extensive airplay on AAA and Americana stations throughout the US along with a bevy of critical praise. He is a mesmerizing transformer when performing live as a solo or with any number of his band, The Transcendos, in any configuration. This drives the songs each night, but the songs have always been what drives the musicians in what The Chicago Tribune has called “one audaciously entertaining ride”.

Ron Genauer is an optometrist who has been involved in community theatre for many years. Some of his favorite roles have been Gelman, in Arthur Miller’s “Broken Glass”, the Player, in Tom Stoppard’s Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Charley, in David Mamet’s Speed the Plow.

John Dotson is a writer/producer/director/multi-media artist with Carmel Bay Players. He also works with The Seventh Quarry Drama Group of Swansea, Wales. John’s first acting was in excerpts of Shakespeare directed by Charlotte Perry at Santa Catalina School. He performed at the Forest Theater in The Hollow Crown, directed by Marcia Hovick, and in Robinson Jeffers’ Medea, directed by Nick Zanides. At Cherry Hall in Carmel, John performed Willie in Beckett’s Happy Days, directed by Conrad Selvig. John’s three-act play, It’s Always Something, directed by Nancy Pridemore, was staged in Kingsport, Tennessee, his hometown, in 2001. He then wrote and played the leading role in Without Why, directed by Conrad Selvig. With Lisa Maroski, John has written two plays, Touching Distance and Dearly Departing, performed in the US and at the Dylan Thomas Theatre in Swansea.

Susan Roether Zsigmond (Director) is a filmmaker and writer. She has directed a number of plays with the First Stage theater group in Hollywood and was made a member of the Actor's Studio playwright directors unit in Los Angeles, where several of her plays were performed. A short film "The Facts of Life," which she wrote and directed, was featured at the Hollywood Cinemateque. Her 2014 novel "Our Lady of West Hollywood" was listed as "best of the independent press" by Kirkus Review.

Maria Garcia Teutsch (Producer) The Revolution Will Have its Sky, won the 2016 Minerva Rising chapbook competition, judge: Heather McHugh. She is a poet, educator and editor. She has published over 20 journals of poetry as editor-in-chief of the Homestead Review, published by Hartnell College in Salinas, and Ping-Pong journal of art and literature, published by the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California. She teaches poetry and creative writing online as a member of the faculty of Hartnell College. She serves as president of the board of the Henry Miller Memorial Library, and is the founder and EIC of Ping-Pong Free Press.

Deidre McCauley has been doing theatre for over 50 years. In Philadelphia she began at Old Academy Players following in her mother's footsteps onto the stage. She’s performed at Western Stage, Magic Circle Theatre, The Golden Bough, Outdoor Forest Theatre and Carl Cherry Center for the Arts. Recently she starred in a film called Laces which debuted at the Monarch Film Festival. She is part of The Actor's Collective which is a group of actors who love to fly without a net.

Marnie Glazier is a writer, theatre artist and educator. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing, and a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies. She has directed a number of productions – professional and academic – has taught Theatre, Writing, and Communication Studies for more than ten years, and currently serves as Theatre Faculty Lead at Hartnell College in Salinas. Her scholarly writing has been presented at numerous conferences and published in Laconics and the Texas Theatre Journal, and upcoming performances include: Transpiration, at the American Society for Theatre Research Conference this fall in Minneapolis, MN. Her work is deeply embedded in social practice/physical/visual theatre, ecology, and ecofeminism.

River Atwood Tabor is a poet, photographer, philosopher and other things that begin with the letter “p.” At 20 years of age, he has helped found a press, published a book of poetry, and traveled to 5 countries, and that’s just in the past year.

approximate schedule

brenda poetry 25 minutes

miller out loud staged reading 30

al rose songs

The 3rd Annual SPEECH IS NOT FREE Festival!!

Follow this organizer to stay informed on future events

Events you might like

Open mic poetry!Open mic poetry!

Open mic poetry!