Making a Difference in the Tenderloin through Theatre Arts
Mayor London Breed receives award for the “Advancement of Black Theater in San Francisco” at the SF Jazz Center.
SF Mayor London Breed stands between SF Recovery Theatre Executive Director Geoffrey Grier and film star David Alan Grier for the heritage preservation performance of “Night at the Black Hawk” (January 14, 2024).
CONCERTS AT THE CADILLAC HOTEL
SF Recovery Theatre will showcase artists from the SF Jazz Center show this Friday, January 12, 2014 at 1:00pm. Guitarists David Alan Grier and Spencer Barefield will play historic jazz music and blues.
David Alan Grier is an actor, comedian, and musician. He began his career by portraying Jackie Robinson in the 1981 Broadway production “The First”, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination for “Best Featured Actor in a Musical”. In 1982, he played James "Thunder" Early in the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls”. He then appeared in the Robert Altman film “Streamers” (1983) as Roger, a role for which he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. That same year, he starred in the stage production of “A Soldier's Play (1983), and later starred in the film adaptation titled “A Soldier's Story” (1984). Grier portrayed multiple characters on the American comedy TV series “In Living Color” (1990–1994). In 1992, he starred alongside Eddie Murphy in the romantic comedy “Boomerang”. From 1993 to 1997, he played the role of Reverend Leon Lonnie Love on the Fox comedy series “Martin”. In 2021, he won the Tony Award for “Best Featured Actor in a Play” for his role as Sergeant Vernon C. Waters in the stage revival of A Soldier's Play (2020).
A. Spencer Barefield has performed extensively for nearly four decades as a ensemble leader, soloist, and with many jazz legends, such as Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake, Richard Davis, Andrew Cyrille and Reggie Workman. Barefield has received numerous honors, including the prestigious 2010 Kresge Artist Fellowship. His compositions have been commissioned by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet-the-Composer/ Readers Digest/Lila Wallace Fund, and many others. His works have been performed at the Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival, the Art X Festival with members of the Detroit Symphony, New Music America Festival, Nickelsdorf and Leverkusener Jazz Festivals, and at many other venues worldwide.
REFLECTIONS IN BLACK
Reflections N Black 2023 is an exploration of the African American experience through the lens of Douglas Turner Ward, playwright and author of “Day of Absence”.
SF Recovery theatre will bookend this epic 1 act with Amri Baracka’s “The Slave” monologue.
ABOUT SF RECOVERY THEATRE
In the midst of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, where homelessness, poverty, drugs and the misfortunate have congregated and for the most part is ignored by the City’s Officials, is the home of San Francisco’s Recovery Theatre.
SF Recovery Theatre is a grassroots organization with a lot of local and some municipal support. It is funded by grants from the art and health community in San Francisco with no full time staff, but with a core group of dedicated actors, composed mainly of people in recovery. Its mission is to meet people where they are, provide a medium of communication and deliver a message of hope, consequence and solutions.
Interested in becoming a part of SF Recovery Theatre?
Contact Geoffrey Grier at sfrecoverytheatre@gmail.com