The OutLook Ensemble
The OutLook Ensemble is responsible for guiding the overall direction of the organization. It is not responsible for the management, creative energy, or artistic vision of projects such as Reviving Spirits. Rather, the OutLook Ensemble works at an organizational level to write grants, create avenues for project ensemble development, and ensure deep community engagement.
Rebecca Schultz (Co-Founder) is a theatre artist and educator dedicated to using theatre as a tool for community dialogue and development. To this end, she has spent the last thirteen years creating original performance pieces about social issues, as a performer, director, teacher and facilitator. Rebecca created several solo performance pieces exploring issues of gender and identity, including the evening length “Passages” which was performed at several Bay Area venues, and has directed a number of community-based theatre projects, including the Play it LOUD! project with LGBT youth. Rebecca has also worked as an artist in residence in many Bay Area schools creating issues-based theatre pieces with youth. Rebecca co-founded Bay Area Theatre of the Oppressed in 2003 and has facilitated a number of Theatre of Oppressed workshops for diverse groups in the Bay Area and beyond since that time. She holds a BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design, an MA in Education with a concentration in Community-Based Theatre Education from San Francisco State University, and has studied theatre with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Headlines Theatre, the Siti Company, Michael Rohd, Augusto Boal, FoolsFury, Leigh Fondakowski, and Deborah Slater Dance Theatre. Rebecca was recently awarded a Theatre Communications Group New Generations grant to travel to Burkina Faso and South Africa to engage in an international exchange with colleagues using interactive theatre to address HIV issues.
Lynn Johnson (Co-Founder), an African American lesbian who has spent her entire life living in communities where she is identified as “other”, has shaped a career for herself dedicated to using the art of theater to celebrate difference while also building strong and diverse communities. Her work as a director, actor, and teacher started in Chicago where, right after her graduation from Northwestern University, she co-founded TurnStyle Teen Theatre, a multicultural teen ensemble that used the process of creating original productions to explore themes central to the lives of its members such as transition and identity. After 8 years of working in Chicago, she left the big city for Chapel Hill, NC where she created and designed many educational and community-based programs. Most notably, she produced and directed a work entitled “Wave When You Pass,” an investigation of notions of home amidst rapidly changing social demographics. The piece was a collaboration of students from the University of North Carolina, professional artists from the StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance, and intergenerational residents of the neighboring rural Chatham County. While also in North Carolina, Lynn designed and directed a Shakespeare program for high school students for Burning Coal Theater Company. Lynn moved to San Francisco in 2002 where worked for 4 years as a trainer and project manager for the Community Network for Youth Development (CNYD), a non-profit intermediary that supports youth organizations in creating quality environments for young people in out-of-school time. Then, in 2003 with her partner, Allison Kenny, she founded Glitter & Razz Productions, a company where kids and the adults who love them create and perform their very own peaceful and powerful plays. Lynn and Allison were legally married in 2006 (one of the 18,000) and now live in Oakland with their 2 small dogs, Roxie & Rufus.
Jason Wyman (Reviving Spirits C0-Director) is a writer, youth worker, cook, community builder, performer and all around networking guru. He explores the edges and spaces of coming out, community building, social justice, and camaraderie through a growing network of blogs, Queerly Complex, and its associated The S. Kitchen events. He also creates and manages participant-centered, peer-led events ranging from film festivals, conferences, learning communities, training-of-the-trainers, and media internships for youth workers, teaching artists, educators, case managers, and other professionals that work with youth currently through Youth Worker: Collective and California School-Age Consortium. He plans, plots, and pirouettes whenever he can, and can (at times) be found back-up dancing for the infamous Cousin Wonderlette. He lives in San Francisco with his handsome husband, John, and their mischievous cat, Mika.
Marissa Rea (Reviving Spirits Assistant Director) is originally from San Diego, California where she graduated from Scripps Ranch High School in 2008. During her teen years, she was an avid volunteer and worked regularly with several philanthropic organizations, including the Escondido Humane Society, the Braille Institute, Special Olympics, and the Senior Community Center in downtown San Diego. Marissa started the first Animal Rights Club at her high school, played varsity tennis, and took group voice lessons. In high school, Marissa admired the confidence displayed by the students who were in drama and how they so easily participated in one production after another. During her Senior year, Marissa summoned her courage to overcome her insecurities and she challenged herself to audition for her first play called Honk: The Musical. During her first year at San Francisco State University (SFSU), she was involved in a queer youth internship with Lyric called Spiral where she had the opportunity to perform in a theatrical production with six other interns focusing on youth in crises and the issues they face with mental health and substance abuse. She is currently in her senior year at SFSU where she is majoring in Psychology. She plans to get a Masters Degree and become a psychiatric social worker. Marissa played the role of Mal is OutLook’s Production of This Many People.
COLLABORATING ASSOCIATE ARTISTS: These are the talented and passionate professionals and community members who make up our community.
Kevin Rolston (Founding Ensemble Member) has been a Bay Area theater artist since 2003. He has appeared in three world premieres at Magic Theatre, two tours with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, mentored with Each One Reach One, and appeared in productions with A.C.T, the SF Playhouse, foolsFury, Word for Word, PCPA Theaterfest, the New Federal Theatre and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Recent credits include Father Flynn in Center Rep’s Doubt and Sgt. Match in Marin Theater Co’s What The Butler Saw. His first playINALIENABLE, which he wrote with his partner , Ronald Palmer, was work-shopped at Magic Theatre in the summer of 2008. Kevin was the lead playwright for This Many People.
Anthony Julius Williams (Reviving Spirits C0-Director and past ensemble actor) is an actor and performance artist based in San Francisco. Recently he created the role of Goram for the world premiere of Philip Kan Gotanda’s #5 Angry Red Drum. He also appeared as Neil in the Traveling Jewish Theater’s production of Donald Margulies’ The Model Apartment. He was also featured in Erika Shuch Performance Project’s After All at the Yerba Center for the Arts, Kevin Rolston’s Crystal Christian at the Magic Theater, and OutLook Theater’s This Many People at The Garage. Anthony has acted in more than thirty stage productions, including Belize in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and The General in Jean Genet’s The Balcony. He has acted, sung, danced, written and/or filmed the original multimedia works Army of Love, The Jaguar and the Giraffe, Possessions, Sweetie, First Five Minutes and Soul Alchemy. He is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in performance art at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, CA.
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