Lesher Center Presents: Good Medicine

Digital Programs

Beginning in 2024, Lesher Center’s Headliners Series adopted the use of digital programs meant to be viewed on mobile devices. By cutting our paper use and eliminating substantial printing costs we are sustaining our mission to elevate the arts in the greater Contra Costa region.

Please be considerate of other patrons and artists when viewing digital programs on your mobile devices. View digital programs before the performance begins or during intermissions.

Patrons who create distractions may be asked to leave.

Welcome

Land Acknowledgement

Meet the Performers

About Re-Discovering Native America: Stories in Motion with The Red Road Project

Upcoming Lesher Center Events

Support Lesher Center

Program Details

Approx 90 minutes with no intermission

Welcome

Thank you for joining us!

Our Lesher Center Presents series is designed to bring audiences year-round entertainment and inspiring artistic voices through our Headliners Series, Center Repertory Company productions, and Bedford Gallery exhibitions.

At the Lesher Center you’ll find a diverse array of genres, artists, and themes at this beautiful home for incredible, innovative arts experiences. In the following pages of this digital program, we invite you to explore our programming and learn more—you won’t want to miss what you’ll find at the Lesher Center!

Peggy + Carolyn

Peggy White

Executive Director, Diablo Regional Arts Association

Carolyn Jackson

General Manager, Lesher Center for the Arts

Land Acknowledgement

Lesher Center and Bedford Gallery acknowledge and honor our presence on the unceded ancestral lands of the Me-Wuk (Bay Miwok), Yokuts, Muwekma, and the Confederated villages of Lisjan, now colonially known as Walnut Creek. The land from which we benefit continues to be a place of foremost importance to these indigenous peoples and their descendants.

With a commitment to honor the art, resources, and values of indigenous peoples and tribes, Lesher Center and Bedford Gallery recognizes the fundamental role they’ve played in our present-day programs. We’re grateful to our friends at the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust for their guidance as we continue to educate ourselves and to uplift and support indigenous communities. To

learn more about Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, and specifically how to pay Shuumi Land Tax to honor the indigenous community, please visit sogoreate-landtrust.org.

To learn more about the land that you reside on, please visit native-land.ca.

Meet the Performers

CURATOR & HOST

JACKIE KELIIAA

Curator and Host

Jackie Keliiaa is a comedian, writer, and actor. She has been featured on Comedy Central, Team Coco, Netflix, and Amazon Prime’s First Nations Comedy Experience. Jackie wrote for the web series You’re Welcome America and can be found in We Had a Little Real Estate Problem. She produces and hosts Good Medicine, an all-Native comedy show which has sold-out theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. She is Yerington Paiute and Washoe and proud to be from the Bay Area.

Instagram: @jackiecomedy X (Twitter): @jackiecomedy

ADRIANNE CHALEPAH is a comedian, actor, writer and enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and a member of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. She has performed on Showtime’s The Curse, FX’s Reservation Dogs, Peacock’s Rutherford Falls and Netflix’s Spirit Rangers. Her standup has been featured on Netflix’s Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy and Amazon Prime’s First Nations Comedy Experience. She co-founded Three Sisters Comedy, an Indigenous femme comedy troupe. Instagram: @adriannechalepah X (Twitter): @AdrianneComedy

TAI LECLAIRE

Taietsarón:sere

‘Tai’ Leclaire is a Mohawk & Mi’kmaq actor, comedian, and writer. His short film Headdress which he wrote, directed, and starred in premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. His next short film is being developed with Warner Bros. Studios that will stream on Max in 2024. He was a story editor and actor on the NBC comedy series Rutherford Falls by Mike Schur, Ed Helms, and Sierra Teller-Ornelas. Tai has been selected as a member of the 2022 Sundance Native Lab and was awarded The Indigenous List in Partnership with The Black List. He is a former house performer at Upright

Citizen’s Brigade Theatre and has performed at festivals around the USA.

Instagram: @tai_leclaire X (Twitter): @tai_leclaire

BOBBY WILSON

Bobby “Dues” Wilson is a SissetonWahpeton Dakota actor, writer, poet, visual artist, and comedian. He wrote and acted on FX’s Reservation Dogs, Peacock’s Rutherford Falls, and he has performed on FX’s What We Do in the Shadows. He is a founding member of the Native Sketch Comedy group, The 1491s, and he co-wrote their critically acclaimed play, Between Two Knees. Bobby is a celebrated muralist and skilled beader whose work has been featured in Vogue.

Instagram: @bobbydues

X: @bobbydues

KRISTIN CHIRICO

is a Native (Cayuga, Seneca) comedian, writer, and YouTuber. Kristin spent nearly seven years as a writer and content creator for BuzzFeed, during which she starred in BuzzFeed’s Ladylike and The Empty Suitcase Show for Facebook Watch. Afterward, Kristin started her own YouTube channel (The Kitchen & Jorn Show) with fellow BuzzFeed alum Jen Ruggirello. Throughout Kristin’s career, her YouTube videos about food and fashion have earned over two billion views and counting. She lives in Los Angeles with her trans wife and her cis dog.

Instagram: @itskristinchirico

TikTok: @kristinchirico

Bedford Gallery in the News!

A new Walnut Creek exhibit showcases Native American voices Native American artists share their experience in photos and a panel discussion at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts

By MARTHA ROSS | Bay Area News

Installation view from “Re-Discovering Native America: Stories in Motion with The Red Road Project,” presented through June 23 at the Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek.

Group

May 23, 2024

For too long, stories about Native Americans have been told by nonNative people, whether in movies, TV shows, books or the visual arts. That’s not the case with “ReDiscovering Native America: Stories in Motion with The Red Road Project,” a stunning exhibition of photos at Walnut Creek’s Bedford Gallery through June 23, or with a June 1 panel discussion, featuring leading Native American artists, including Oakland novelist Tommy Orange. The exhibition showcases some 100 photos, personal stories and other artworks, collected by Red Road Project founders, Danielle SeeWalker and Carlotta Cardana. The photos document the lives of contemporary Native Americans, from the sweeping

landscapes of remote reservations to their living rooms in towns and cities, as they celebrate their communities, traditional practices and achievements, or give voice to the ongoing challenges of historic displacement and oppression. SeeWalker also joins “There There” author Orange in the June 1 panel discussion. They will talk about their

Julian of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota and his son, Elijah. (Photo/Carlotta Cardana)

inspiration and process for creating their work. Rounding out the panel are: Tazbah Chavez, co-creator of the FX series “Reservation Dogs”; and moderator Jackie Keliiaa, a comedian, writer and actor known for Amazon Prime’s “First Nations Comedy Experience.”

Details: Both the photo exhibition and the “Contemporary Voices” panel discussion are presented at the Lesher Center for the Arts. The exhibition continues through June 23 in the Bedford Gallery, with a “pay-what-you can” admission. The panel discussion will be at 2 p.m. June 1 in the Margaret Lesher Theatre, with tickets costing $35$40. https://www.lesherartscenter.org/

Lesher Center Resident Programs

Our nonprofit partner, DRAA, invests in the power of the arts to transform lives and creates avenues for everyone to experience the arts.

Support Lesher Center

Fiesta Cultural 2023 Street Fair, Chavalos Danzas por Nicaragua, photo by Ben Krantz Studio

There are many ways to show your support! Your gifts through the Lesher Center’s nonprofit partner, Diablo Regional Arts Association, drive excellence, innovation, diversity, and access for all through performances, exhibitions, and education programs.

• Make a one-time or monthly donation

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Leadership

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Leadership

Loella Haskew

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Cindy Darling, Matt Francois, Cindy Silva, Kevin Wilk

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Bedford Gallery provides exhibitions and public programs that reflect and engage the diverse audiences of the Contra Costa region.

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