Purple Yam Presents Fundraiser for Award-winning Writer Randy Gener, 3/24

In Support of Randy Gener: An evening of laughter, learning and love on Monday, March 24 at 6 p.m.

To RSVP, please email amy@purpleyamnyc.com

This Fundraising Event in support of the Nathan Award-winning editor/writer/artist Randy Gener will be held at Purple Yam restaurant on 1314 Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn. It will feature a talk by journalist and Columbia University Prof. Sheila Coronel and a comedy skit by SPIT or the Silly People's Improv Theater, Manila's premiere improv group.

Food will be provided by Purple Yam Chef Romy Dorotan, along with guest Chef King Phojanakong of Kuma Inn and Umi Nom restaurants.

Committed journalism and comedy combine in a March 24 event to raise funds for Gener, who is currently recovering from a brutal attack he suffered in January.

Police said Gener was assaulted by one Leighton Jennings in the early morning of January 18. Gener, also a theater artist, underwent a brain surgery resulting from the severe head trauma. His family and friends are worried that insurance may not cover all of his hospital expenses. All proceeds of this fundraiser will go toward Gener's medical and hospital expenses.

"Randy has always been a good friend and very supportive of many of my projects at Purple Yam. When he became a victim of this horrific act, we had to act to offset this violent act with kindness. We want Randy to heal and look forward to an empowered career in journalism after rehab," said Purple Yam owner Amy Besa on why this event is being organized.

Pun Bandhu | Emcee

Pun Bandhu is an award-winning actor who has worked on Broadway, Off Broadway, in TV and Film. A graduate of the MFA Acting program at the Yale School of Drama, Bandhu made his Broadway debut in the revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit by Margaret Edsonstarring Cynthia Nixon. He received a Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a deeply private and closeted Japanese American in The Catch, a world premiere by Ken Weitzman at the Denver Theatre Center.

On film, Bandhu can be seen in the Academy Award-nominated movieMichael Clayton and the Coen Brother's Burn After Reading. He has finished wrapping on Stephen King's next movie A Good Marriage, starring Joan Allen and Anthony LaPaglia.

Sheila S. Coronel | "They Kill Journalists, Don't They?" | A talk on violence against journalists

On November 2009, 32 journalists were killed by armed men in the employ of the powerful Ampatuan family who rule the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao. It was, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, " the single deadliest event for journalists in history."

What has happened since? Why does journalism continue to be a dangerous profession, not just in the Philippines, but other parts of the world?

Sheila S. Coronel is a Filipino journalist and director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University. In July, she will be dean for academic affairs at Graduate School of Journalism. She is also on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists..

SPIT (or the Silly People's Improv Theater) | A comedy skit

SPIT, which is currently on a U.S. tour, will represent the Philippines in the New York Improv Festival of March 19-23. Comprising about a dozen performers and professionals from varied fields, SPIT was founded in 2002 by Gabe Mercado and some of his friends. Mercado trained with legendary Second City founder Paul Sills at the Wisconsin Theater Game Center.

Purple Yam Restaurant | Amy Besa and Chef-Owner Romy Dorotan

Romy Dorotan is the chef-owner of Purple Yam restaurant in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and partner Amy Besa. Previously Dorotan was the chef at Cendrillon, a Filipino restaurant in downtown New York that closed in 2009. It was known for serving traditional Filipino dishes as well as those that have been influenced by the cultures of other countries such as Spain, Mexico and the United States.

Chef Dorotan and Besa, who is also from the Philippines, wroteMemories of Philippine Kitchens, which is a recipe book illustrated with rich, evocative photos of life in the Philippines and its food. In 2007, the book won the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Jane Grigson Award for Distinguished Scholarship in the Quality of Research Presentation.

Ironically, Chef Dorotan had cooked for Jane Grigson in 1982 when he was lunch chef at Hubert's in Manhattan. The author wrote enthusiastically about the meal cooked for her by a Filipino chef who experimented with exotic Asian ingredients in New York City. A newly revised and updated edition of the book was released in May 2012 with the last chapter revised to reflect the restaurant's move from Cendrillon to Purple Yam as well as its renewed purpose of showcasing Asian culinary values and re-discovering the Filipino palate.

Besa and Chef Dorotan are the founders of the Ang Sariling Atin Culinary Heritage Institute (ASA) in the Philippines.

For more information about Purple Yam, visit purpleyamnyc.com.

Randy Gener | Editor, Writer, Artist

Randy Gener is a multi-award-winning and internationally prominent editor, writer, digital-media producer, playwright and visual artist in New York City. Gener is presently World News Editor of The Journalist.ie, a Dublin-based daily news site; a founding Broadway critic of the New York Theatre Wire (nytheatre-wire.com); a founding editorial board member and U.S. editor of Critical Stages (criticalstages.org), the web journal of the International Association of Theatre Critics; and has twice been an editor-in-chief of Prague Quadrennial Daily, the official newspaper of the Czech Arts Institute/Theatre Institute of the Czech Republic.

Gener has had a distinguished career. From 1991 to 2001, Gener was a staff contributor and arts critic at The Village Voice. From 1997 to 2001, he was digital content producer of BroadwayOnline.com andTheatre.com, both online daily news portals. From 1993 to 1997, he was a pop-culture writer for the New York Daily News. From 1996 to 2009, he was a features writer for The Star Ledger of New Jersey. From 1996 to 2012, Gener was the Nathan Award-winning senior editor and contributing writer-at-large for American Theatre, a U.S. magazine published by Theatre Communications Group.

A produced playwright. Gener is the author of the award-winning and critically acclaimed plays Love Seats for Virginia Woolf (NAATCO),Wait for Me at the Bottom of the Pool (HERE Arts Center), A Parliament of the Streets (Judys Chelsea and Dixon Place), and other theatre works.

A professional dramaturge, Gener has worked for the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, Roundabout Theatre Company, Pan Asian Repertory Company, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, and Denver Center Theatre Company.

Gener's visual-art installation piece, in the garden of One World debuted at La MaMa La Galleria in New York in 2008. He also created and curated two versions of a photography/oral-history exhibition, "Positively No Filipinos Allowed": The Lives and Loves of Filipino Migrant Workers in the U.S., (designed by Eric Ting) for the Culture Project in New York City and Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2007 to 2012, Gener served as curatorial producer and adviser of the USA national exposition, From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of American, which represented the U.S. at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in the Czech Republic. This exposition on the sociopolitical issues consuming American performance makers debuted in Long Beach, California, in March 2012. After premiering in New York at LaMaMa LaGalleria in December 2012, it will debut in Moscow in the fall of 2014.

Gener has written numerous articles, reviews and scholarly essays forNew York Times, New York Magazine, Time Out New York,The International Herald Tribune, Disney's FamilyFun Magazine, New York Daily News, Gay City News, Sweden's national newspaper Expressen, Korean Theater Journal; and major publications in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Visit www.randygener.com, www.randygener.org and www.cultureofoneworld.org.

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