San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company is working hard to make their New Roots Festival, running Friday through Sunday, Nov. 10 – 12 a staple of the Bay Area’s theatre event scene. New works by fresh, young creatives and an opportunity for artists to showcase exciting diverse works at their inception is at the heart of the company’s desires.

The festival’s artistic director, Rodney Earl Jackson, Jr., is hopeful that the works will send people away nourished and enlightened by the diversity of the stories. 

“We are living in a time of great despair, it can feel hopeless but the power and magic of live theatre plans to be a healer,” said Jackson, Jr. 

The festival’s mission is about bringing together new and diverse works with emerging new pieces. The opportunity to walk away with concrete feedback from artistic professionals for those developing new projects is an invaluable aim of the festival.

“Artists will also be able to get a sense of real world audience reaction to their work that will be harvested from audience participation activities, incentivised game based talkbacks and encouraged social media posts/responses,” said Jackson, Jr. “By creating a celebratory community environment we hope to build awareness and engagement in non traditional theatre audiences. 

“We believe that by creating space for original work as well as amplifying community gems will help build awareness of SFBATCOs work as a company while achieving our mission.”

The full schedule of the festival (Complete descriptions and talkback times found at sfbatco.com):

DE MANGANGÁ
Directed and choreographed by SeQuoiia and Tania Santiago
Fri 11/10: 8:00 PM
Sat 11/11: 2:00 PM*
↑ In-person or live stream
Sun 11/12: 4:00 PM

A movement-driven retelling of the folklore of Besouro Mangangá, an early 20th century Brazilian Capoeira legend who was so prolific in his art and so fruitful in his fight against oppression and injustice that he was believed to have supernatural abilities. 

Read about this show in the San Francisco Chronicle Datebook

SHIDAIQU – A PARTLY-HISTORICAL MUSICAL
Written by Jord Liu
Directed by Ely Sonny Orquiza
Fri 11/10: 5:30 PM
Sat 11/11: 5:00 PM
↑ In-person or live stream
Sun 11/12: 1:00 PM

In the 1920s, Shanghai was simultaneously the birthplace of a new and idealistic Communist party, an incubator of American jazz, and a city with one of the largest wealth gaps in history. Shidaiqu: A Partly-Historical Musical is the fictional story of a peasant from the countryside who travels to the big city to play jazz with the greats, and ends up falling in with a group of musicians and activists who introduce him to the communalism inherent in the creation of art. 

DYING WHILE BLACK AND BROWN
Presented by Zaccho Dance Theatre
Sat 11/11: 8:00 PM

Commissioned by the Equal Justice Society, the work is a choreographed dance theater piece expressing both the struggle and the will to survive in an inherently dehumanizing system. The four male dancers performing in Dying While Black and Brown symbolically depict the extreme overrepresentation of black and brown men in the prison system and on Death Row, and how their voices are deliberately extinguished. 

DIRTY WHITE TESLAS MAKE ME SAD
Presented by Campo Santo and Magic Theatre
Fri 11/10: 7:00 PM
Sat 11/11: 4:30 PM
Sun 11/12: 1:30 PM

A new performance work written by A.M. (Ashley) Smiley about the regentrification of San Francisco and the displacement of Black folks from their neighborhoods. DWTMMS is a testimonial about people and their struggles with hope. The story unfolds over a few days in the life of Sloosh, our protagonist. We follow Sloosh – a young Queer AfroLatina from Bayview Hunters Point caught up in a transcendental rut. 

THERE IS NO HATRED HERE
Written by Thomas Robert Simpson
Presented by Afro Solo
Sat 11/11: 1:30 PM
Sat 11/11: 7:00 PM
Sun 11/12: 4:30 PM

The story of a young man’s growth into Black militancy, his turbulent relationship with his pacifist father, a prominent minister, and the resolution of their relationship during the Civil Rights era.

REFLECTIONS N BLACK 2023
Presented by SF Recovery Theatre 
Directed by Geoffrey Grier

An exploration of the African American experience through the lens of two Black Psychiatrists (Dr. William H Grier and Dr. Price Cobbs), co-authors of the 1968 seminal book, Black Rage. This work titled The Psych has included an excerpt from an essay by local writer Marvin X Jackmon, tackling the psycholinguistic crisis of the North American African.