SPRING 2020 / ISSUE 11
Together in Spirit
The Alumni Issue
Contents . . . 3
Health, Wellness, and our Curriculum
4
From Totes to Medical Face Masks
4
Waldorf Alum’s AI Platform against Coronavirus
and connection from our
5
We Did It! Home Court Campaign
Administrative Director
6
The David Bushnell Center
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Why a Class Play? Drama through the Grades
9
From New York Stage to Waldorf High School - Kelly Lacy
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Photos from #sfwaldorfshelterinplace
12
Lillie Henderson - Assistant Athletic Director
14
Alumni in the Performing Arts
A message of gratitude
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PHOTOGRAPHY & COMMUNITY Staying connected while staying home
A message from our Administrative Director
Dear Friends, These are uncertain times. As we settle in to physical distancing and distance learning, I am grateful for our community. We know this challenging COVID situation will pass, and our care and commitment to each other ensures that we remain a vibrant school and community.
Chernis family, high school and grade school. Photo: Scott Chernis
Photography connects us — now more than ever. So, we invite families to share images around the theme: Front Steps Portraits The concept, suggested by our amazing parent photographers whose photos are featured throughout this issue, is to share a casual portrait in front of your residence. It’s a moment in time at this moment in time, a community re-connection. We are exploring other periodic prompts — simple, fun ideas — so stay tuned! Interested? Email: news@sfwaldorf.org Post: #sfwaldorfshelterinplace #frontstepsportraits Images may be shared on social media and/or the website.
I am grateful for the power that comes from teaching the right things at the right time. Young children grow in freedom into extraordinary young adults, people who make a difference in the world like Waldorf graduate KimFredrick Schneider, featured here, whose mobile messaging technology is fighting against Coronavirus. I am grateful for our faculty who strive to know each student, inspire excellence, and weave creativity into every subject. Their responsiveness under unprecedented circumstances has inspired me as a parent and a colleague. Our school is built on human connection, and the faculty are working and evolving from this foundation. I am grateful to our parents and students. You are challenged on countless levels, working side by side, without break, for an uncertain amount of time. Your stories are filled with grace, beauty, levity, honesty, courage, and loving kindness toward our school and the world, including parents like Jan Hammock, featured in this newsletter, who has adapted her business to make medical masks. Music, humor, flexibility, patience, collaboration — these are some of the offerings that help sustain me. Faculty and staff are dedicated to supporting your family with the spirit of service, improvement, resources, full hearts, and open minds. Reach out if you need or can offer help. Sincerely, Craig
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Health, Wellness, and our Curriculum
lifestyles, and safe environments (incidentally, the U.S. placed 19th). This report has become an indispensable tool for policymakers as they attempt to understand what underlies happiness and well-being.
is my hope that as we emerge from our quarantine lifestyles, we have more opportunities to connect and share resources and wisdom as we strive together to support our students.
by kris wolcott, wellness teacher
Additionally, our collective understanding of stress, trauma, and resilience has expanded greatly since the landmark 1997 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study conducted by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC. We now know that toxic stress can cause neurological changes and most certainly is causative in poor health outcomes in later life. We also know that the protective factors that beget happiness also offset the effects of trauma. Healthy rhythm and sleep hygiene, proper nutrition, daily movement, and time spent in nature are the pillars of health and wellness. Of course, this is Waldorf education 101.
I look forward to being a part of this collective effort. ~
I have had the great privilege of creating and teaching the Wellness curriculum for our 9th and 10th grade students. Now in its second year as part of the Health/Wellness/Gardening block, our program enriches what is already an incomparable list of course offerings aimed to educate and nourish the whole developing human being. This trio of courses also offers students an array of information, tools, and practices to help moderate the stress, fatigue, and anxiety that seem to be part of modern-day life for high school students. Earlier this month, the UN released its annual World Happiness Report, which ranks countries by their happiness levels. The common determinant factors that the happiest countries share include supportive social networks, healthy
And here we find ourselves living in new ways, navigating many circumstances beyond our control. We are experiencing what can easily be defined as a global collective trauma. This is in addition to the very real stresses we are likely facing as families each day. The current circumstances have provided us all with a grand opportunity to reassess, recalibrate, and restore. Our community is filled with expert practitioners, master teachers, artists, and visionaries. It
Kris Wolcott is a lifelong high school educator who has taught at public and independent schools, and through innovative community programs for at-risk and underserved youth such as Leah’s Project and The Art of Yoga. She is a Waldorf trained teacher with a Master’s in Education from USF and certifications in Curative Education, NMT (Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics), child development, nutrition, martial arts, outdoor education and environmental studies.
Local Designer Transitions from Totes to Medical Face Masks From fulfilling orders to filling a need Parent Jan Hammock’s innovative company Millie Lottie is switching gears from the production of an original line of locally produced food-carrying totes to medical mask manufacturing, a move that helps address the medical supply shortage and provides income for a local contract sewer. Want to support her effort?
How Mobile Messaging Can Help The Fight Against Coronavirus by oisin lunny, senior contributor from forbes.
© 2020 forbes. all rights reserved. used under license.
Sometimes a personal tragedy can be the catalyst for life-saving innovation. Abi Global Health CEO Kim-Fredrik Schneider was inspired to work in healthcare after the death of his childhood best friend, Abraham Heitzeberg, who passed away aged 12 from WerdnigHoffmann disease, a rare variant of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). Schneider named the company in tribute to his friend Abe‘s kind and courageous spirit.
Abraham Heitzeberg. Photo: courtesy of Montie Heitzeberg
The Abi platform offers “fast help from friendly doctors” by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile messaging. This article can exclusively reveal that today Schneider and his co-founder Dr. Victor Vicens will announce that their platform will be made available for free, to potentially hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, during this crucial time in the fight against the coronavirus.
Cut out your fabric and Jan will take it to her sewer then donate masks to hospitals. Email Jan for the pattern: jan@millielottie.com. Want to contribute financially? Visit her GoFundMe page.
Kim-Fredrik Schneider, CEO of Abi Global Health. Photo: Borna Subota
The Abi platform aggregates trained and vetted doctors within the Abi network, and uses an AI-powered chatbot interface to streamline the interactions. Abi helps to triage patients at the all-important “first mile” of the healthcare journey by effectively allocating physician time, and reducing potential bottlenecks in the healthcare system. The platform has been shown to deliver an 85% reduction in physician time per case and a 70% reduction to in-person medical visits. Differentials such as this can be game-changing in scenarios such as the current spread of coronavirus.
Schneider explains the reasons behind Abi with genuine passion and a sense of urgency in his voice. “Not only do we have an aging population who need more healthcare, but the younger ‘messaging generation’ is not getting what they need the most, because they are not comfortable with the existing methods of consultation.” The first mile of healthcare is often too cumbersome, particularly for millennials and centennials, continues Schneider. “Downloading an app, finding a private space with good lighting and a stable internet connection, getting dressed and ready for a video call when you are feeling unwell; these barriers can be a terrible user experience (UX) for people used to instant service via their mobile devices. A bad UX can lead to inefficient healthcare utilization, which takes a huge financial toll on society; the cost of people going to the doctor when they Continued on page 12: Mobile Messaging
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We Did It! The Vision Realized THE BUSHNELL CENTER — BUILT BY MANY
100%
$8 MILLION
More than 450 donors — you are parents, relatives, alumni, teachers, and friends of the school.
Special thanks to the committee members below for their time and dedication Executive Committee Jim Stearns, Co-Chair William “Cotty” Wolcott, Co-Chair
Contributions of all sizes — from $5 by a student to an unprecedented $1 million legacy gift.
75%
A record-breaking campaign — more than triple the giving total of the previous campaign.
Craig Appel Grace Kim Mitch Mitchell Eric Norman, Consultant Leadership Committee Bryan Anderson Susan Bolich-Giddens David Bushnell* Jess Byron Joan Caldarera
Last but not least
50%
— recipient of a Community Challenge Grant from the City of San Francisco of $150,000 for streetscape and growing wall, awarded in March 2020.
John DiDomenico John Froley Andy Hart Paige Hart Liz Perry Sheila Schroeder Karen Staller Seraph White Mike Zatopa
25%
*The Bushnell Center is named after David, in honor of his inspirational leadership on the project; sadly, on March 9, 2020, we marked the two-year anniversary of his passing.
Building Committee Craig Appel Kevin Bosch, Owner‘s Rep Danielle Dignan Gerhard Engels Richard Parker, Architect Jim Stearns William “Cotty” Wolcott Mike Zatopa
The plans are drawn.
THE DAVID BUSHNELL CENTER
The Home Court Campaign is launched.
The David Bushnell Center is dedicated.
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It’s a contribution to our students and future generations of families. - Cotty Wolcott, Chair
Through education, a space has been cultivated for empathy.
Home to school athletic events, performances & gatherings
The center [is] like the fully-formed self or identity of the school. -Dr. Joan Caldarera
Why a Class Play? Drama through the grades by mary barhydt, class teacher
2018 Production of Queen Esther. Photo: Lucy Goodhart Photography
At San Francisco Waldorf School, we don’t shy away from the big questions that children ask themselves, those questions that may never be articulated with words but that nonetheless live strongly in each child’s soul. Who am I? What is my place in the world? What is my relationship to the people around me? Through the study of history and mythology, and in the early years, the immersion in fairy tales and fables, the children learn how people through the ages have approached these questions. When the students begin to act out the stories they have heard, they become even more intimately aware of the twists and turns life may take as human beings struggle to know who they are and why they are here. Why did Moses expect so much of himself and of others? How did Penelope outwit her suitors? How did Odysseus learn to think for himself? Am I like Loki, who loves to make mischief, sometimes even at the expense of my family and friends? What qualities in Joan of Arc allowed her to achieve what no other trained military expert had? Do I possess any of those qualities? How did the love of Rama and Sita endure through so many trials and hardships? A well-written play bathes the students in one of humanity‘s most noble and unique qualities, that of beautiful and expressive speech. On the stage, the children experience the wonder and power of speech in a unique way because it is spoken aloud and “by heart” and it is brought to life through the child’s own gestures, movement, and facial expressions. Ask a twenty-year-old graduate to recite her lines from the Fifth Grade play and sit back as she speaks not only her own lines but, most likely, many of her classmates’ lines as well. One tiny aspect of the question, “What is my place in the world?” is answered through this immersion in artistic language. “I am a human being, capable of expressing the fullness of my existence and of communicating with other human beings through the gift of speech.” Producing a play involves many skills and requires the children to rely on each other in ways unlike any other experience. Arranging props, designing the lighting, fitting costumes, moving scenery at just the right moment, backstage prompting, providing musical interludes, and the acting onstage all must work together to achieve a successful performance. Drama is a powerful active pursuit involving real instead of virtual social interactions, and the intensity of the children’s desire to succeed, both as individuals and as a class, creates an atmosphere of powerful social learning. Students see their classmates’ special qualities and gifts in new ways when they are utterly dependent upon each other onstage. Tempers may flare and patience may wane but, in the end, the students stand together to take their bows, having experienced both the pleasures and the challenges of an artistic social endeavor. I hope these words have brought a new thought or two to the question of why we devote significant time and energy to drama in the Waldorf curriculum and why the children anticipate their class plays with such joy and enthusiasm.~
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New York Stage to Waldorf High School How Kelly Lacy connects with young thespians and humanities students by amelia williams, contributor
York City. Los Angeles did not even cross her mind. “An acting teacher that I studied with said something I thought was really wise: ‘Anyone can go to New York, but you have to be invited to LA.’ LA never appealed to me. I’d been to New York once, and I just fell in love with it. There‘s a really palpable energy there.” Once settled in New York, Lacy started working. “I took any job,” she says, which included acting in plays, films, commercials and a featured episode on the Phil Donahue show.
There is a commotion in the lower level studio of San Francisco’s Waldorf High School at 3:30 pm on a Tuesday. Students from every grade, some with shoes and some without, are gesticulating and speaking loudly over one another. Almost all of them also have scripts in their hands. This is par for the course for Waldorf’s annual theatre showcase. The show this year is The Drowsy Chaperone, directed and produced by the school’s very own Kelly Lacy. Lacy’s path to theatre and teaching isn‘t as linear as one might assume from a Bay Area kid. Her draw to the stage didn‘t start until she entered San Francisco State University with a concentration in theatre arts. After “picking it up pretty easily” and earning her theatre chops while featuring in productions like The Possessed and Top Girls, she started working all across the Bay Area, from Spindrift Players in Pacifica to community theater in Moss Beach for a handful of years. Then in 1996, Lacy decided it was time for a change, and finally acted on her long-held desire to go to New
After seven years in the Big Apple, it was time to come home. “I literally came out of an acting class one afternoon and was standing on Broadway and like a bolt of lightning, I just had this moment of clarity: I did not want to be an actress. And that was kind of it. So then I had to listen to the little voice that had been telling me to be a teacher.”
“We find that a substantial increase in arts educational experiences has remarkable impacts on students’ academic, social, and emotional outcomes.” - Brian Kisida and Daniel H. Bowen, “New Evidence on the Benefits of Arts Education,” The Brookings Institution, February 2019
Lacy started her family in the Bay Area and learned about the Waldorf School from a newspaper article left on the BART. “I had always wanted to teach English,” she says, “I have a real love of literature and language. The way the teacher in the article spoke about his students and their work together, I thought, Gosh, I’d love to work in a place where that relationship is possible.” A new path, one that had been in the back of Lacy’s mind, suddenly
became possible. After attending an information evening, Lacy gave up weekends and half her summers for three years to complete Waldorf’s teacher training. “Looking back, I’m still sort of shocked that I did that, but I did, and it was transformational.” In 2008, she began teaching Comedy and Tragedy at the high school on an instructor’s recommendation and made her co-directorial debut that same year. Her curriculum has grown over the years to include Shakespeare Studies, Theater Arts, Film & Lit, and Idealism & Humanity. In addition to teaching, Lacy has directed over twenty shows for the Waldorf school, including Antigone, The Curious Savage and a production of Oliver in collaboration with the San Francisco Food Bank. Lacy has also done most of the costuming, design, and props for her shows; there are hired musicians and a choreographer, but Lacy is very much the captain of the ship. The high school’s facade is currently marred with the scaffolding and tarps of long-term construction; the school is finally getting its longawaited gymnasium later this year. For years, Waldorf students have been shuttled to other fields, gyms and campuses to accommodate physical education and sports teams. The theatre department has similarly had to find venues off-campus for their annual spring productions, including Brava Theater, Dance Mission Theater and ZSpace. The new theater space won’t be ready for the new musical in May, but Lacy has been involved in conversations about construction to guide staging and lighting plans. This year the show is a musical, a “musical within a comedy”, called The Drowsy Chaperone, a story with origins in Chicago’s Second City Improv members. The premise? An unnamed, elderly gentleman Continued on page 11: New York
Share your photos! @sfwaldorf #sfwaldorfshelterinplace
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New York Continued from page 9
waxes nostalgic to the audience while listening to a fictional 1920’s musical on his record player, and the play comes to life in his living room. Roles were cast in December and now students have settled into their rehearsal schedule, which today covers blocking. And there is a lot of blocking for this play-within-a-play. Students enter and exit in flurries, sing and dance, and props are being used throughout. Every student still at school at 5 pm wants to be there, and all have roles, if not on stage than with the stage crew.
Early blocking rehearsal for The Drowsy Chaperone “I have the benefit of knowing these students outside of what they can show during an audition. It’s not like professional theater where casting is a matter of ‘who’s best.’ I try to give them roles that will help them grow as people, as well as where they can shine as actors.”~
Photos: Susan Bolich, Alessandra Cave, Scott Chernis, Jan Hammock, Erica Saltiel
Post-school closure: Choreographer Chloe and several students have been connecting via Zoom on final numbers. Unfortunately, at publication, Ms. Lacy reports that the May 1 performance has been postponed.
Meet Lillie Henderson
Mobile Messaging Continued from page 4
ASSISTANT ATHLETIC DIRECTOR & BASKETBALL COACH shouldn’t is $50bn, while people not going when they should costs at least $500bn.”
In grade school, Lillie Henderson attended a Doug Bruno Basketball Camp, a nationally recognized program serving tens of thousands of girls, and was recognized for her efforts with the “No Retreat, No Surrender, Never Give Up Award,” which motivated her through her youth, as a coach, and to this day. A star basketball and soccer player in her hometown of Chicago, Henderson studied at the University of Dayton then earned her Master’s in Sports Management at the University of San Francisco. Her coaching experience includes teams at schools, camps, and clubs.
Court teams will compete at the new Bushnell Center
Now in her first year as Assistant Athletic Director, Henderson manages grade school sports and coaches several basketball teams. When asked for an early impression, just as the Girls’ season commenced, she recalls the leadership qualities of the 8th Grade Boys, a team that took 2nd place in league championships. “They came together and really helped coach themselves.”
“We want to remove as many barriers as possible to people accessing healthcare consultations,” continues Schneider. “Abi users don’t even need to install an app; they just start a conversation with our chatbot on their preferred messaging channel such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Skype, Viber and even SMS. A licensed physician is on call to provide a micro-consultation and typically answers within five minutes. Our AI allocates the best doctor for each situation, and ‘human in the loop’ machine learning is used to improve the platform with every interaction. Our data shows that consumers love the convenience; we see up to 20 times higher utilization compared to some of the leading apps in the same space.”
Kim-Fredrik Schneider (L) and Dr. Victor Vicens (R). Photo: Abi Global Health
The Abi Global Health product is a smart distillation of an idea whose time has come. Other players in the mobile telehealth ecosystem include giants like the Tencent-backed WeDoctor, which is aiming for a $10 billion valuation when it goes public, and Ping An Good Doctor, which recently broke the astonishing figure of 300 million registered users, the equivalent to one in every three Chinese Internet users. When WeDoctor launched a platform dedicated to coronavirus-relates cases, they helped to facilitate 1.4 million consultations within a month. In the US, 98point6 has been a trailblazer for text-based telehealth solutions via their secure mobile app. 98point6 is on-demand, text-based primary care that connects board-certified physicians licensed in all 50 states with patients 24/7. Leslie O’Brien, their director of national account management and client experience, explains that while the platform offers voice, video and audio
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Mobile Messaging Continued from previous page
solutions, text is by far the preferred modality of communication. “The overwhelming majority of our patients prefer to have their visits via in-app messaging. It’s simply easier and faster to text than it is to have a conversation these days. We have found that this is true not only for millennials and centennials but also the 55+ age group. When you think about it, they are having to text with their children and grandchildren, so texting with the doctor is just as convenient and easy.”
“The platform has been shown to deliver an 85% reduction in physician time per case and a 70% reduction to inperson medical visits. Differentials such as this can be game-changing in scenarios such as the current spread of coronavirus.” Data from companies in the mobile messaging space certainly backs up many of O’Brien’s findings. OpenMarket‘s 2017 survey of 500 millennials found that 83% would rather text a business than call a helpline, while the recent 2020 State of Texting report by messaging innovators Zipwhip found that the medium of text is more popular than ever. Zipwhip CEO John Lauer explains, “Texting is becoming the preferred way for consumers to get information quickly and easily; literally, it’s right at their fingertips. I believe that texting is the highestpriority form of communication on
the planet.” The difference between textbased consultations and traditional hospital visits are significant, continues O’Brien. “We have found that health care is not meeting people where they are, and I think this is universal. In the United States, the average wait to see a primary care doctor is 24 days. So, no wonder people are running into urgent cares and emergency rooms. Because if you have a sinus infection, you can‘t wait 24 days for a doctor. Text-based primary care is meeting people where they are, on their mobile devices. We want to be ridiculously affordable because we want people to actually use it. We want people to not have to make a financial tradeoff to take care of themselves.” The benefits of text-based consultation platforms become even more apparent when viewed in contrast to the alternatives, continues O’Brien. “If we can help answer a patient‘s question quickly, they are less likely to search the web to self-diagnose, because who knows what healthcare advice they‘re going to get online! Also, we do a post-visit survey and one of the questions we ask is, ‘If you had not had access to our platform what would you have done?’ One of the responses is ‘I would have done nothing.’ We’re diving into that deeper and deeper each month, trying to better understand why they would have done nothing. What we are finding is that if we can catch things early, or keep people healthier earlier, we know that down the road this is going to help not only the person individually but also the overall system.” Schneider agrees with this last point emphatically. “For most people, healthcare is not something you plan for. How many times do you plan to get sick this month? Health can pivot from being something you take for granted to suddenly
being the most important and most urgent thing in your world. In these stressful times, part of our job is to stop people from doing nothing or asking ‘Dr. Google’ for healthcare advice; the scope for misinformation is a real danger. We make it as easy as possible for people to connect with trained and vetted human doctors to offer qualified consultations. Our platform not only helps to onboard people immediately so that they can get the right information at the right time, but it also helps the healthcare industry to manage its most valuable resource, the consultation time of trained physicians.”
Abraham Heitzeberg (L) and Kim-Fredrik Schneider (R). Photo: courtesy of Ingun Schneider
To follow today’s announcement by Abi Global Heath on free access to their micro-consultation platform during the coronavirus crisis, please visit their LinkedIn page at linkedin. com/company/abi-global-health. ~
Kim-Fredrik Schneider, CEO of Abi Global Health, attended Sacramento Waldorf School, two years in kindergarten with Monique Grund’s dear friend Eva Kudar then 12 years on top of that. Many in our community know Ingun Schneider, Kim’s mother, a founding parent and educational support teacher at San Francisco Waldorf School and the longtime director of the Remedial Education Program at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks.
A Bow to our Alumni in the Performing Arts Sofia Alicastro, SFFilm. Sofia is the Artist Development Manager of Filmmaker Programs at SFFilm. She runs the year-round residency program for Bay Areabased filmmakers and produces monthly programming including talks, workshops, mixers, and more for the local film community. She is currently on the jury that selects the films that receive funding through grants and fellowships. Sofia is fortunate to have held a variety of positions at several organizations including California Film Institute, Cannes Festival, Film SF, Nantucket Film Festival, Netflix, Seattle International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and YBCA. She graduated from Lewis & Clark College with a degree in Rhetoric and Media Studies and a minor in Studio Art.
“Now more than ever we are feeling the power of film to provide comfort to communities around the world as well as ignite social change. It is incredibly thrilling and rewarding to be able to support artists from San Francisco to Macedonia and beyond in an impactful way.”
Andre Amarotico, actor, teacher, and performance coach. If you took in a recent summer production of the SF Mime Troupe you would have seen Andre perform. From the Troupe’s amusing, satirical take on Treasure Island, the SF Examiner calls Andre Amarotico, “terrific in a variety of roles.” A 2012 high school grad with degrees in theater and political science from Stanford University, Andre has performed with Throckmorten Theater Company, Cutting Ball Theater, and New Conservatory Theater Center.
James Freebury, Director, Performer, and Dramaturge. James possesses recent credits with several local companies including the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, We Players, and Collected Works. James earned a BA from the University of Santa Cruz in European History, where his Senior Focus was on the Bronze Age Mediterranean. He holds an MA degree in Humanities from the University of Chicago.
Dan Hoyle, actor, writer, creator of journalist theater. His off-Broadway hit production of Border People returns to the Marsh Theater Berkeley in April 2020. Dan, profiled here, is an artist-in-residence at Columbia University and Trinity College, Dublin.
Allason Leitz, Operations and Programming at the nonprofit Maysles Documentary Center, coordinator of the Harlem DocFest. Read the latest about this multitalented arts administrator.
Trevor Sargent, Scenic, Lighting, and Projection Designer. Trevor earned a theater tech degree from Lewis and Clark College and is now based in Portland, Oregon. His work has been seen recently at Shaking the Tree Theater (Sale; Macbeth; The Caucasian Chalk Circle; Come to the Table, Mike Pence; Head, Hands Feet). He’s served in lead technical roles for Third Rail Repertory Theatre (The Angry Brigade; The Nether; The Flick), Imago Theatre (La Belle), and Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble (Deception Unit; Procedures for Saying No).
Book 6 at Sutro Park. Photo: Jamie Lyons
The Living Odyssey, Freebury’s primary project, brings “to life Homer’s Odyssey through memorizing and performing the text in flexible form and in collaboration with other artists.” The show has been performed around San Francisco, from Sutro Park and Baths to our own Dakin Hall. James Freebury was in the Grade School Class of ‘98.
Lighting and scenery for The Delays at Theater Vertigo. Photo: Scotty Fisher