{"id":392,"date":"2009-11-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqed2.wsmtechs.net\/spark\/san-francisco-mime-troupe\/"},"modified":"2016-01-29T14:03:13","modified_gmt":"2016-01-29T22:03:13","slug":"san-francisco-mime-troupe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/spark\/san-francisco-mime-troupe\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Mime Troupe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"kqed-jwplayer\"> <\/div>\n<p><script>\njwplayer(\"kqed-jwplayer\").setup({\nfile: \"http:\/\/od1.kqed.org\/anon.kqed\/spark\/sfmime.m4v\",\nimage: \"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/spark\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2015\/06\/sfmime-248x140.jpg\",\naspectratio: \"16:9\",\nwidth: \"100%\",\nprimary: \"flash\",\ntracks: [{ file: \"http:\/\/od1.kqed.org\/anon.kqed\/spark\/sfmime.vtt\", label: \"English\", kind: \"captions\", \"default\": false }]\n});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<style>\n.single-post .entry-content > #kqed-jwplayer_wrapper, .single-post .entry-content > #kqed-jwplayer  {\n    margin-left: 8.33333% !important;\n    padding-left: 0.625rem;\n    padding-right: 0.625rem;\n    width: 56% !important;\n}\n<\/style>\n<p><em class=\"video_caption\">View <strong>Spark<\/strong> segment on the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Original air date: November 2009. (Running Time: 6:30)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"This Week: Web Extra:  Peter Coyote on The San Francisco Mime Troupe\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tADoIP48S-A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em class=\"video_caption\">View <strong>Spark<\/strong> Web extra of Peter Coyote, actor and a major player in the counterculture of the 1960s, talk about his experiences as a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the power of comedy, and the legacy of the 1960s. (Running Time: 3:54)<\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">&#8220;At a certain point, you don&#8217;t do what you do because you think you are going to win. You do it because it is the only way you have of manifesting your humanity.&#8221;<cite>&#8212; Peter Coyote, former San Francisco Mime Troupe player<\/cite><\/aside>\n<p>Decidedly unsilent, the San Francisco Mime Troupe&#8217;s gadfly theater, played for free in city parks and spaces, has long defined a distinctly San Francisco brand of experimental theater. <strong>Spark<\/strong> talks with actors Ed Holmes, Michael Sullivan, and Velina Brown in Dolores Park as the San Francisco Mime Troupe gets ready for a 2009 performance of &#8220;Too Big to Fail&#8221; during their 50th anniversary season. <\/p>\n<p>Founded in 1959 by actor Ronnie Davis, the Mime Troupe&#8217;s debut work, &#8220;Mime and Word,&#8221; took commedia dell&#8217;arte as its model. But as the turbulent, politically charged 1960s unfolded, the troupe evolved into a fast-moving, agitprop theater &#8212; or as alumnus Peter Berg described it, &#8220;guerrilla theater&#8221; &#8212; bringing caustic political and cultural satire to the city&#8217;s streets and parks. <\/p>\n<p>The troupe&#8217;s freewheeling productions ran afoul of the law in 1965 when the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department denied the troupe a permit to perform and arrested Davis, citing &#8220;obscenity.&#8221; The Mime Troupe won the subsequent lawsuit, establishing the right of artists to perform uncensored in city parks. <\/p>\n<p>In 1968, the troupe &#8212; which tours throughout the United States and internationally &#8212; won its first Obie Award &#8220;for uniting theater and revolution and grooving in the parks&#8221; with its contemporary version of &#8220;L&#8217;Amant Militaire.&#8221; The production protested the Vietnam War and the involvement of Dow Chemical Company &#8212; which then manufactured napalm &#8212; and featured a young Peter Coyote. Since 1970, the Mime Troupe has operated as a collective, and among the many who&#8217;ve participated are such notables as concert promoter Bill Graham (who organized his first show at the Fillmore as a bail benefit for the Mime Troupe), musician Bruce Barthol, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Teatro Campesino&#8217;s Luis Valdez.<\/p>\n<p>The Mime Troupe has won two more Obies (in 1973 and 1990) and a special 1987 Tony Award for excellence in regional theater. They&#8217;ve performed in Communist Cuba and in Sandinista Nicaragua; taken a modern Israeli-Palestinian farce to both West and East Jerusalem, garnering their third Obie for that production; and continued to tackle topics from corporate imperialism to terrorism to religious fanaticism, fulfilling the troupe&#8217;s mission to identify the forces that shape our lives and dramatize the operation of these giant forces in small, close-up stories that help audiences feel the impact of political events on personal life.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"resource-links\">Resources<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Array<\/li>\n<li>Array<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Celebrate 50 years of irreverent and thought-provoking political theater with the San Francisco Mime Troupe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8667,"featured_media":2103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"coauthors":[18],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theater","post_format-post-format-aside"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.13 - 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