[BHS Etree] VOLUNTEERS: Ushers Needed Thurs. 3/25 Morning

[BHS etree]

Please DO NOT REPLY to the E-tree. Contact Janet Huseby [mailto:jhuseby at pacbell.net]

On Thursday March 25 Chinaka Hodges, a former BHS student who is currently starring in her original play "Mirrors in Every Corner" showing at the Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco, will perform at Berkeley High School in the morning. Appearing with Chinaka will be Daveed Diggs - another BHS graduate, actor and musician. We are looking for 15 volunteer ushers for event which promises to be an exciting one.  

We need the volunteers to help set up at 9:45 and stay through the event which will be over at 11:30. If you can come help, please let me know at jhuseby at pacbell.net. For more information on the two stars, please see below.

1. Chinaka Hodge is a poet and playwright. Originally from Oakland, California, she was named Best Poet by the East Bay Express in 2008. She was the inaugural recipient of Dave Eggers' 826Valencia young author scholarship. Chinaka graduated from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study in May of 2006, and was honored to be the student speaker at the 174th Commencement exercise.

Her most recent book, For Girls With Hips, released in May 2006, is in its third publication. Chinaka was a member of the U.S. Artist Delegation to the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya in early 2007.

She received co-writing credit for Marc Bamuthi Joseph's Scourge, sponsored, in part, by the Creative Work Fund, which opened in May 2005, in San Francisco. She was the assistant director of Suzan Lori Parks' 365 Plays, 365 Days, at its San Francisco debut in November 2006. She also co-wrote The One Drop Rule: A War Piece, which debuted in Fall 2008. Her first independently written play, Mirrors in Every Corner, commissioned by SF's Intersection for the Arts opened in spring of 2010.

Her work has been featured in Teen People Magazine, Newsweek, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Oakland Tribune, Scholastic Magazine, Current Magazine, The Annual Women of Color Film Festival, PBS, NPR, KMEL, WBAR, WKCR, CNN, C-Span, KPFA and in two seasons of HBO's Def Poetry.

2. Daveed Diggs is an actor, educator, composer, rap and spoken word artist who graduated with a degree in Theater Arts from Brown University in 2004. He has many California and regional credits including most recently Pacific Rep Theater's Troilus and Cressida (Troilus) and A Comedy of Errors (Duke), The SF Playhouse Six Degrees of Separation (Paul) and Jesus Hopped the A Train (Angel). Diggs also teaches Rap and Spoken word classes at James Lick Middle School and at the Marsh Youth Theater and gives workshops throughout the Bay Area, New York City, and New Jersey. He has been a teacher in residence with the Arts Literacy Program in Providence, Rhode Island and a teaching artist for the national youth spoken word organization Youth Speaks.

As a writer, Diggs has written several plays in verse including: Sweeter Than, a play based on the writings of Harlem Renaissance poet Jean Toomer, which was produced by Rites and Reason theater in Rhode Island; Big Shoes, a solo performance piece; and he is currently co-writing and performing in a new play for the Living Word Festival called The One Drop Rule which will be directed by acclaimed artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph. In the New York Area you can see Diggs perform as a new member of The improvisational theater/rap event Freestyle Love Supreme. Catch him in San Francisco with the similarly designed Improvisational music/super-hero squadron The Freeze.