Come mix and mingle with activists, artists and educators over a refreshing summer beer at Township. Plus, Robbie Q. Telfer, performance poet and co-founder of The Encyclopedia Show, will MC a concise and witty live show featuring storytellers on current events, popular culture and adventures in activism. Buy your own drinks. Delicious noshes prepared by Chef Tamiz will be served. Hosted by The Public Square and Young Professionals Amnesty International Network.
Featured Storytellers include:
Stephanie Douglass is a farmer, writer, actor, and activist, who divides her time between the soil and the stage. Over the past few years, Stephanie has built gardens in the Middle East, run food and compost toilet sanitation workshops in Ethiopia, and taught Mathematics and Film in Chicago’s alternative school system. She was head writer for OLN’s extreme sports show “Outside Magazine’s Ultimate Top Ten,” and is currently spreading the gospel of permaculture and developing nutrition projects for young mothers in Uganda. In New York, she is a co-founder of the award-winning theatre company The TEAM, and in Chicago, she performs with the ladies of Eleanor and tells stories. She recently won Chicago’s Moth GrandSLAM, grows organic veggies amidst Illinois’ corn-opoly with Growing Home.
Rafael Franco is a journalist, actor, photographer, and author. His short stories have been published in many anthologies and as a journalist he has published with newspapers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. His book of short stories titled “Alaska” won the first annual national short story prize from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in 2006 and his novel, “El peor de mis amigos” was hailed by critics as one of the ten best books published in the island in the last decade. After moving to Chicago in 2008, Franco began acting for the stage with Halcyon Theater and is represented by Gray Talent Agency. In 2011 he translated Manuel López Abreu Adorno’s seminal short story collection, “And the hippies came,” into English for 7Vientos, a bilingual publishing upstart he helped found. The title story is the inspiration for his one man show, And the hipsters came. He is currently working on a series of novels about the end of the world and collaborating with Dominican author and performer Rey Andújar on a political play about Puerto RIcan independence titled “Bars and Stripes.”
Malcolm London is a young Chicago poet, performer, activist and educator. Malcolm has recently shared stages with actor Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt and artist Lupe Fiasco as a part of the The People Speak, Live! cast. Malcolm will appear of this season of TVOne’s Verses and Flow (http://luxuryawaits.com/versesandflow/#1). Winner of Louder Than A Bomb Youth Poetry Festival 2011 taking first place as individual performer and with his team, Malcolm has performed on stages all across the city of Chicago, including Chicago Jazz Festival, Du Sable Museum, The Vic Theater, The Metro, The Chicago Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater: where he was a member of their Young Adult Council, Victory Gardens Theater, and in venues across the country. He is a member of UCAN’s National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention, a city-wide board. Malcolm is an experienced and passionate teaching artist at Young Chicago Authors where he visits schools introducing their work to hundreds of students through writing workshops and performances. Malcolm anticipates his first published chapbook from New School Poetics in Winter 2012.
David Stovall is an Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies and African-American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has spent the last ten years working with community organizations and schools to develop curriculum that address issues of social justice. His current work has led him to become a member of the Greater Lawndale/Little Village School of Social Justice High School design team, which opened in the Fall of 2005 where he also serves as a volunteer social studies teacher. Stovall is a Chicago native and his motivation for going into the field was the combination of family members, neighbors, and members of community organizations that supported him in doing educational justice work without fear of persecution.
More about the MC:
Robbie Q. Telfer is the co-founder and curator for The Encyclopedia Show, a live literary variety show being staged independently in over 10 cities around the world. He’s been in two documentaries (from HBO and Siskel and Jacobs) for his work at Young Chicago Authors where he organizes the world’s largest teen poetry festival called Louder Than A Bomb. He’s written on two video games, is the poetry correspondent for TimeOut Chicago, and in 2007 was an individual finalist at the National Poetry Slam. His first published book of poetry, Spiking the Sucker Punch, was released in 2009 from Write Bloody Publishing.
Free and open to the public. For more information please call 312.422.5580.