Advocacy is a process of learning, listening, and action.
Mountain Play believes everyone should be able to enjoy the pleasure of a shared experience of live musical theatre. However, many in our community don’t get this opportunity. With support from our sponsors, Mountain Play strives to expand access to our theatre experience by eliminating economic and physical barriers to participation.
- Increases engagement in live performing arts by exposing a broad audience to high-quality musical theatre.
- Enriches lives by annually hosting underserved communities, introducing children and adults to a day in nature and their first theatre experience.
- Promotes environmental citizenship by bringing 12 to 15 thousand people each year to the State Park and providing education about their natural environment.
- Builds a healthy community by supporting organizations from retirement homes and Scout Troops to service organizations and local schools.
- Supports the local economy by bringing customers from three counties to patronize Marin’s businesses.
- Enhances the quality of life in Marin by providing jobs and training for hundreds of theatre and musical artists each year.
Theatre Arts Education Program
Performance Class with Interactive Enrichment
In this audition-based program, actors aged 7 to 17 worked together to develop their performative, literary, and social skills while learning the art of storytelling and the joy of creative movement. Each week we will work toward our goal of writing and producing an original mini-musical to be performed on opening day as part of the Mountain Play Pre-Show Experience!
Participants received two comp tickets for family, reserved seating, a free T-shirt, a backstage tour of the mountain theatre, and an opportunity to meet select members of the cast of Hello Dolly!
We will also be keeping in place all necessary health and safety protocols regarding COVID-19, i.e., regular hand washing/sanitizing and social distancing when appropriate.
Momentum is building!
Sharing the joy of theatre isn’t possible without engagement with our community. Please contribute here if you want to support our Education Program and its growth. If you are interested in becoming a community partner, please get in touch with Eileen Grady at [email protected].
YOUTH THEATRE PROGRAMS AND INFORMATION
Mountain Play Theatre Education Program
Since 2015, Mountain Play has been committed to teaching after-school classes. Every year we expose kids to the theatre who otherwise would not have the opportunity. During the 2019 season, our teachers witnessed a group of boys playing the tableaux game with as much fervor as a video game was joyous. Students who participate in our Arts Education Program at Davidson Middle School are immersed in a ten-week course in theatre arts. The finale of this rich educational experience is a journey to the amphitheater to see a Mountain Play performance. Once there, students see the show for free, get a free lunch and t-shirt, and an opportunity to meet and interview the actors.
Online Theatre Education Videos:
Color Your Voice Workshops. In honor of letting your voice be heard democratically in the upcoming elections, we are leading theatrical and vocal exercises to develop your unique voice through videos. Please Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to keep up to date with our ongoing series.
We are expanding the arts programming on the mountain for ALL.
Before the performances of Grease, in a space we call PLAYland, the Mountain Play piloted a theatre games program with audience members. Guests of all could enjoy active and engaging entertainment before the show.
“At PLAYland, I saw the wonder that comes from playing and play-making as we cultivated the idea that theatre is truly for all ages. I found that we were able to make a day at the Mountain Play an immersive experience for everyone!“
-Experienced teaching artist and veteran Mountain Play actor, Marlee Mesarchik
Voter Services & Advocacy
League of Women Voters – Marin: www.MarinLWV.org
Voter Service (promoting voter registration & educating voters) as well as advocacy and action in the areas of education, governance, justice, healthcare, and transportation/land use/housing. 100 Years Strong in 2020!
Vote411: www.Vote411.org
Your “one-stop-shop” for election related information. Nonpartisan information to the public with both general and state-specific information on many aspects of the election process.
Suffrage & Women’s History
National Women’s History Alliance : www.NationalWomensHistoryAlliance.org
Information about women’s history, suffrage, Check out the many resources and learn more today.
National Women’s History Museum: www.NWHM.org
Online exhibits, oral histories and more!
Everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities. As the Mountain Play does the organizational work necessary to place that which we value in action, we wish to share resources and tools with our community. Please visit the Our Commitment page on this site to view our organizational action plan as published in August of 2020 to see our internal education and work to be accomplished.
Please, share all of these resources with your friends and family.
Uplift local BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) organizations and businesses.
Check-in and listen to your BIPOC & Queer friends and peers.
Actions You Can Take Now: Thank you to Theatre Bay Area & Leigh Rodon-Davis for sharing these actions.
1. Think before you reshare graphic videos of violence against Black people. While these images are important to raise awareness and show others the extremity of this brutality, you risk re-triggering or traumatizing Black and brown folx in your communities.
Read this: newrepublic.com/article/153103/videos-police-brutality-traumatize-african-americans-undermine-search-justice
2. Take time to educate other non-Black folx and challenge anti-blackness and racism in your families and social networks. This labor should not fall on people of color who are living these experiences. Read this next: refinery29.com/en-us/2020/05/9841649/allyship-ahmaud-arbery-george-floyd
3. Participate in advocacy to support the victims and their families; do your due diligence and make sure the organization is actually donating to the proper parties. A useful tool to vet organizations: www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0074-giving-charity
Support BIPOC Businesses in the Bay Area & Beyond:
Visit the list on Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Marin’s website: http://surjmarin.org/resources/bipoc-businesses/
2022 Black History Month – Black Health and Wellness
“Black History Month shouldn’t be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes. It’s about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans, high and low, famous and obscure, and how those experiences have shaped and challenged and ultimately strengthened America,” – President Barack Obama, Feb 18, 2016.
There is no history of the United States without African American history. However we continue to find that our history is not taught in its complete complexity and so therefore continue to shine light on the contributions and sacrifices of the black community through Black History Month. This year the focus is on Black Health and Wellness – well timed given how COVID-19 disproportionately effects people of color as well as the mental health awareness brought on by top athletes over 2021 summer.
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History website for a history of Black History Month and other great resources
ASALH Theme Resources and Materials
Follow these remarkable Black women of wellness
Anti-racism Resource List:
Black Lives Matter
Canal Community Alliance: Services, Resources and Advocacy for Marin’s Latino Community.
Reclaim the Block is fighting to defund the police and calls on officials to invest in violence prevention, housing, resources for youth, emergency mental health response teams, and solutions to the opioid crisis.
75 Things White People Can Do For Racial Justice
Know Your Rights Camp’s Legal Defense Initiative – The Know Your Rights Camp Legal Defense Initiative has identified and teamed up with top defense lawyers in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area to provide legal resources for those in need.
Color of Change
The Loveland Foundation
NAACP
Anti-racism Resource List for White People & Parents
Black Visions Collective
Becoming allies, and eventually accomplices for anti-racist work
JSTOR Daily, “where news meets its scholarly match”, put together a number of ARTICLES creating a syllabus about Institutionalized Racism.
Showing Up For Racial Justice Bay Area
Letters for Black Lives is a set of crowdsourced, multilingual, and culturally-aware resources aimed at creating a space for open and honest conversations about racial justice, police violence, and anti-Blackness in our families and communities.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice: Coronavirus/COVID-19 Resources to Stand Against Racism – Asian Americans have been targeted by racism and xenophobia related to the coronavirus or COVID-19. We offer the following resources in response to this hate.
Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate
Asian American Advancing Justice
Antiracism Daily Newsletter: Sign up for a daily antiracist email: “Each day, we offer an overview on current events and apply an anti-racism lens. Learn how practices embedded in our politics, criminal justice system, and workplaces enforce systemic oppression – and what you can do about it.”
LGBTQ+ Rights:
GLAAD
Human Rights Campaign
National Center for Lesbian Rights
The Spahr Center (Marin County)
Mental Health Advocacy and Crisis Resources:
NAMI Marin National Alliance on Mental Illness for local and national resource
Make it OK Mental Health conversation resources and tools
Suicide Prevention Life Line 1 800 273 8255
Crisis Text Line Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 mental health support via text message. Text HOME to 741741
The Trevor Project Providing 24/7 support for LGBTQ youth in crisis. Trevor Lifeline: 1 800 488 7386, Trevor Text: Text START to 678678
The Environment – Protecting Art in Nature
“The Mountain Play began as both an artistic celebration of the beauty of Tamalpais and as a means of bringing together the hiking community with the goal of preserving this natural beauty that was threatened by private land developers in the early 20th century.” – Tom Killion, forward of Marin’s Mountain Play: 100 Years of Theatre on Mount Tamalpais
P erforming in a state park, surrounded by giant curly, flaking madrone trees, the Mountain Play aims to create harmony between all of our activities and nature. This means we consider all our environmental impacts, from building the sets to what we sell at our merchandise booth. For example, the stage each show is performed on is built up from the dirt each year. Then everything is removed and returned to nature at the end of each run, leaving no trace of our festival. During the performances, the rocks, trees, and even the fog become characters in the stories being told on stage.
It’s a gift and a joy to perform beautiful stories on stage alongside the stories being told in nature. However, as artists for the environment, we take responsibility for all our actions and footprint on and off the mountain. Steps we can all take to create a healthier world will manifest in a safer environment for the Mountain Play and future generations.
Please use this page to understand the problems that the environment faces and the countless resources for solutions for both individuals and companies.
