The Marsh Unveils New Daily Programming On Marshstream

The Marsh continues to offer a wide variety of new programming at 7:30pm nightly on MarshStream, its popular broadcast platform.

Offerings through September 15 include: a hilarious, harrowing attempt to cure OCD with psychedelics; words of wisdom/foolery from Bay Area treasure Geoff Hoyle; the return of Brian Copeland's captivating drama, The Waiting Period; a visit with award-winning solo performer, writer, educator, and musician Wayne Harris; and much more (see latest schedule below).

The program launched in April and has received overwhelmingly enthusiastic response, with hundreds flocking to view and participate each night. MarshStream programming varies daily, with Monday Night MarshStream (short performances by a variety of artists), Wild Card Tuesdays (everything from book/writer discussions, sing-a-longs, Tell It On Tuesday, to Sound Healing and Restorative Yoga), Wednesday Solo Arts Heal (offering stories of health, advocacy, and inspiration), Stephanie's MarshStream on Thursday nights (interview, bantering, Q&A, and performance excerpts, moderated by Marsh founder Stephanie Weisman), plus Bingo! hosted by Josh Kornbluth, live full-length performance concert readings, archived performance streams, performance development classes, and more. A noon series includes CJ's FitnesSing weekly singing lesson and fitness class, plus a Super Slow Weight Training and Zoomba Room. Content is offered at 7:30pm nightly, and mid-day throughout the week via Zoom, YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and iTunes. MarshStream viewers are asked to contribute whatever they can afford. Donations can be made by joining The Marsh's membership program and via a virtual "tip jar" both on the website, with funds going to support and sustain The Marsh and its performances.

For more information, the public may visit www.themarsh.org/marshstream.

NOTE: Most past shows from earlier MarshStream dates are also available on the website for viewing.

Monday Night MarshStream

7:30pm, Monday, September 7

David Ford's Class Performance

Director David Ford invites his students to create and perform their own twenty-minute work for MarshStream. Topics include writing and improvising, the narrator as a character, the difference between psychology and art, and relating to the audience. Featured performers for this event include Theresa Donahoe, Johanna Courtleigh, Wynd Kaufmyn, and Ady Abbott. Ford has been collaborating on new and unusual theater for three decades and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him "the solo performer maven," "the monologue maestro," "the dean of solo performance," and "the solo performer's best friend." Collaborators include Geoff Hoyle, Echo Brown, Brian Copeland, Charlie Varon, Marilyn Pittman, Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, and Marga Gomez. He is also a published playwright.

7:30pm, Monday, September 14

David Ford's Class Performance

Director David Ford invites his students to create and perform their own twenty-minute work for MarshStream. Topics include writing and improvising, the narrator as a character, the difference between psychology and art, and relating to the audience. Featured performers for this event include Pearl Ong, Tina D'Elia, Helene Lara, Laura Jane Bailey, and Salane Schultz. Ford has been collaborating on new and unusual theater for three decades and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him "the solo performer maven," "the monologue maestro," "the dean of solo performance," and "the solo performer's best friend." Collaborators include Geoff Hoyle, Echo Brown, Brian Copeland, Charlie Varon, Marilyn Pittman, Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, and Marga Gomez. He is also a published playwright.

Wildcard Tuesdays

7:30pm, Tuesday, September 1
Inner Landscapes Sound Journey. Hosted by Val Jew and Laura Inserra
Sound alchemist Laura Inserra collaborates with healing practitioner Val Jew in Inner Landscapes Sound Journey. Jew will talk to Inserra about her delivery of vibrational sounds to audiences, asking deeper questions about the role that sound journeys play in an individual's life. As a music and sound therapy teacher, Inserra weaves the transformative power of sound and wisdom traditions to enable self-exploration and wellbeing in both one-on-one sessions and group settings.

7:30pm, Tuesday, September 8

David Ford's Class Performance

Director David Ford invites his students to create and perform their own twenty-minute work for MarshStream. Topics include writing and improvising, the narrator as a character, the difference between psychology and art, and relating to the audience. Featured performers for this event include Sharon Eberhardt, Ady Abbott, Ipeleng Kgositsile, and Diane Barnes. Ford has been collaborating on new and unusual theater for three decades and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him "the solo performer maven," "the monologue maestro," "the dean of solo performance," and "the solo performer's best friend." Collaborators include Geoff Hoyle, Echo Brown, Brian Copeland, Charlie Varon, Marilyn Pittman, Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, and Marga Gomez. He is also a published playwright.

7:30pm, Tuesday, September 15

Joshua Raoul Brody's Beatles Sing-Along

Lovable accompanist Joshua Raoul Brody recreates the event he's been hosting at venues around the Bay Area for over 10 years: Beatles karaoke night. After playing some of his favorite Beatles songs, Brody will point the microphone at the camera and have audience members take over.

7:30pm, Tuesday, September 15

David Ford's Class Performance

Director David Ford invites his students to create and perform their own twenty-minute work for MarshStream. Topics include writing and improvising, the narrator as a character, the difference between psychology and art, and relating to the audience. Featured performers for this event include Fontana Butterfield, Laura Sydell, Elizabeth Du Val, Anne Rovzar, and Lambeth Safriet. Ford has been collaborating on new and unusual theater for three decades and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him "the solo performer maven," "the monologue maestro," "the dean of solo performance," and "the solo performer's best friend." Collaborators include Geoff Hoyle, Echo Brown, Brian Copeland, Charlie Varon, Marilyn Pittman, Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, and Marga Gomez. He is also a published playwright.

Solo Arts Heal

7:30pm, Wednesday, September 2 - Replay of Adam Strauss' The Mushroom Cure (originally aired on April 29)

Special guest Adam Strauss. Hosted by Gail Schickele.

Inspired by a scientific study that hallucinogenic mushrooms may cure obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Strauss embarked on a program of vigilante psychopharmacology. The true tale of Strauss' hilarious, harrowing, and heartrending attempts to treat his debilitating OCD with psychedelics was an Off-Broadway hit, where it was named Critics' Pick by Time Out New York and hailed by The New York Times as "mining a great deal of laughter from disabling pain." Madison Margolin, founder of the psychedelic magazine Doubleblind, and Danielle Negrin, Executive Director of the San Francisco Psychedelic Society, join Strauss and Schickele for a post-performance discussion and Q&A.

7:30pm, Wednesday, September 9 - Ananda Bena-Weber's FANCIFOOL! Presents BEES: The Heart of the Matter

Special guest Ananda Bena-Weber. Hosted by Gail Schickele.

Humans need bees to survive. Without bees, humans wouldn't have fruits or vegetables, and practically zero biodiversity of plants and animals. In this special FANCIFOOL! presentation of BEES: The Heart of the Matter, Ananda Bena Weber is joined by renowned clown experts Dr. Ellen Smarphniak and Dr. Franz Lederhosen to discuss bees, agriculture, and the deeper psychology behind these environmental puzzles. Bena-Weber is an interdisciplinary performing artist who has performed in a diverse array of productions and venues throughout the United States and abroad. Her fun-filled work focuses on common problems in modern American society and how these issues can be solved by loving and understanding one another.

Stephanie's MarshStream

7:30pm, Thursday, September 3

Special guest Wayne Harris. Hosted by Stephanie Weisman.

Stephanie's MarshStream will feature an exclusive interview, performance excerpts, and Q&A with award-winning solo performer, writer, educator, curriculum innovator, and musician Wayne Harris. This interview will highlight Harris's New Perspectives workshop, his latest brainchild that he is currently developing in collaboration with MarshStream. New Perspectives is focused on using the power of storytelling to shed light and help support the resolution of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Harris has accumulated an impressive body of work over the years that include five full-length plays, presentations for schools, directing and designing for pageantry groups as well as various musical projects. In 2013 Harris was asked by the U.S. State Department to perform and hold storytelling workshops in Jerusalem and the West Bank, where he premiered The Letter, his piece about Martin Luther King in Birmingham. Since then his latest play, Mother's Milk: A Blues Riff in Three Acts, has played to enthusiastic audiences winning "Best of Fringe" at the 2014 San Francisco International Fringe Festival. Harris is currently the Director of the Marsh Youth Theater and a Resident Teaching Artist for Stagebridge, an intergenerational theater located in Oakland. With the help and assistance of Bay Area educators, he has performed traditional and new tales of America's most famous African American mythological character, developing a standards-based curriculum and performance that explores the power of myth and storytelling.

7:30pm, Thursday, September 10

Stephanie Weisman hosts a roundtable discussion with Monday Night MarshStream host Alexa Almira, Solo Arts Heal Host Gail Schickele, and CJ's FitnesSing TM Host Candace Johnson.

A current San Francisco State Student, Alexa Almira has been working at The Marsh since she turned 18, focusing on The Marsh's website before becoming Monday Night Marsh's Programming Director and a Technical Staff member. Trained as a journalist in New York and Colorado, Gail Schickele has covered Colorado state politics and the environmental landscape of the Rockies. She has also worked on Al Gore's Climate Reality Project and as an administrator and reporter on environmental issues for the league of Women Voters. As an arts manager, consultant, and producer for SAGE Artists, Schickele convened an "Arts Heals" group of solo artists at APAP 2020 whose unique stories of physical and mental challenges evince the healing power of the arts. The on-going shelter-in-place inspired Stephanie Weisman to invite Schickele to host MarshStream's ongoing Solo Arts Heal. Soprano Candace Johnson has concertized widely, including guest appearances at Carnegie Hall and The Manhattan Center. Johnson premiered her one-woman show, VOX in a BOX, at UC Berkeley in 2018 before it appeared at The Marsh in 2019 as a Marsh Rising performance. This work is a musical biography of how Johnson uniquely fused her black music heritage and classical training to find her "voice." As a current Music Faculty member at UC Berkeley, Johnson teaches voice classes and specializes in the research and performance of classical works by African-American composers.

BINGO! with Josh Kornbluth
7:30pm, Fridays
Hosted by Josh Kornbluth
Audience members are invited to play five FREE games of BINGO! with prizes for the winner of each round. On September 4, attendees will be encouraged to present their best political chant, slogan, or poster after the BINGO broadcast!

Solo Performer Spotlight

7:30pm, Saturday, September 5 - Brian Copeland's The Waiting Period, with LIVE post- performance Q&A

Sunday, September 6 - The Waiting Period remains available for streaming

Written by Brian Copeland and directed by David Ford, The Waiting Period is a deeply moving and surprisingly funny work that outlines Copeland's own struggles with depression and suicidal thought, and is presented at no cost to remove all barriers for those who may be struggling with depression themselves. This captivating drama provides an unrelenting look at a key turning point in Copeland's life-the mandatory ten-day waiting period before he could lay his hands on the newly purchased gun with which he planned to take his own life. Laced with surprisingly funny moments that serve as a buffer against the grim reality of his intentions, Copeland hopes this very personal, and ultimately redemptive, story will reach people who struggle with depression-often called the last stigmatized disease-as well as their families and loved ones. Over the past years, Copeland has offered free performances of this life-saving work to provide an opportunity to reach those who need to see the show, but have been unable to due to the price of admission. As individuals around the world continue to navigate through the potential health and financial impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, The Marsh is thrilled to be able to now MarshStream this production.

7:30pm, Saturday, September 12 - Geoff Hoyle's What Will I Be When You Grow Up?, with LIVE post performance Q&A

Sunday, September 13 - What Will I Be When You Grow Up? remains available for streaming

Geoff Hoyle didn't get hit by a bus in his 30s, didn't have a heart attack in his 50s, didn't get frontotemporal dementia or COVID-19 (so far) in his 70s, and now he's old enough to be "The Grandfather." In his latest piece of foolery, What Will I Be When You Grow Up?, Hoyle ponders his "legacy" and vast "worldly wisdom," and how you pass on the best bits.

5:00pm, Sunday, September 13 - Brian Copeland's The Waiting Period, with LIVE post performance Q&A

Written by Brian Copeland and directed by David Ford, The Waiting Period is a deeply moving and surprisingly funny work that outlines Copeland's own struggles with depression and suicidal thought, and is presented at no cost to remove all barriers for those who may be struggling with depression themselves. This captivating drama provides an unrelenting look at a key turning point in Copeland's life-the mandatory ten-day waiting period before he could lay his hands on the newly purchased gun with which he planned to take his own life. Laced with surprisingly funny moments that serve as a buffer against the grim reality of his intentions, Copeland hopes this very personal, and ultimately redemptive, story will reach people who struggle with depression-often called the last stigmatized disease-as well as their families and loved ones.

To simulate the feeling of waiting in the lobby until a theater opens, The Marsh has created the MarshStream Studio Waiting Room. Available 30 minutes prior to each performance/event for Marsh members, and 15 minutes prior to the general public, the Waiting Room can be joined via Zoom Room where guests can mix and mingle, or viewed on YouTube live, with additional entertainment such as unique content, live music, and even prizes.

In addition to nightly program offerings on MarshStream, The Marsh has also launched Marsh Youth Theater (MYT) MarshStream, classes offered at 4:00pm daily taught by MYT instructors. From Creative Dramatics to Storytelling, Dancing, and more, class types, instructors, and age levels vary for each class. For weekly class schedules and additional information, please visit themarsh.org/mytmarshstream.

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