Some important things are happening in the great state of California.

First, please consider supporting playwright, activist, and writer Cherríe Moraga’s Kickstarter for her new play, “New Fire: To Put Things Right Again,” if you can. They’ve raised $26,100 of their $26,500 goal, with only 36 hours to go.

Production still for NEW FIRE from Brava! For Women in the Arts.

I try not to ask for $ on behalf of theatrical productions often, because if I did I would be doing it every day, but this is a really extraordinary project. If I had found out about it earlier, I would have been hyping it earlier–but we’re down to the wire now, and they really need that extra $400 or they won’t make the full goal. You know how KS is–all or nothing.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/419411661/new-fire-to-put-things-right-again/widget/card.html

I was lucky enough to study playwriting with Moraga in college, which was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. She taught me so much. I’ve donated myself and I’ve asked friends to donate on Facebook. I know these are tough times for everyone in the US, but we need art, even in tough times–and this is important art. Here’s something she wrote about the production’s development project, from the KS page:

“…collaborators held ceremonial meetings with immigrant and indigenous communities from the barrios of Chicago to the agricultural fields of California’s San Joaquin Valley in order to establish a solid community base for their explorations as theater artists.”

Here’s Moraga speaking at a UCB commencement in 2009:

Please become one of this production’s backers if you can.

In other theatre news, some of my favorite actors in the world–the remarkable Michelle Hilyard, Phil Ward, Darrett Sanders, and other NOTE veterans–are uniting in a show opening this weekend at NOTE in Los Angeles–Have You Seen Alice. Here’s the playwright:

“There is humor and hope in my play, but this time I did not allow myself a fairy tale ending. Instead I wanted to honor the fears and frailties that humans sometimes contain, to accept and acknowledge our self-imposed prisons and our inability to take the steps we long to take.”

– playwright Jacqueline Wright on her writing process, in LA STAGE TIMES for her new play, HAVE YOU SEEN ALICE?, opening at Theatre of NOTE this weekend. Free preview Thursday. Tickets here.

I’m proud of the theatre being created by artists in California, and I wish I could do more to support both of these productions. They have my thoughts and my hopes–for the fundraising, for the opening.