This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the Bay Area Performing Arts in Times of Corona, host David Latulippe welcomes back to the virtual stage of our Corona Radio Theater, members of San Francisco performing arts company Word for Word, with the second installment of Citizen by Greg Sarris. We talk with actor and assistant public defender Mark McGoldrick about his four-part series Countercoup, available on MarshStream. Plus, Peter Robinson talks with violist Jennifer Douglass.
San Francisco performing arts company Word for Word tells great stories with elegant theatricality. The ensemble returns to Open Air’s Corona Radio Theater with part 2 of their podcast production of Citizen by Bay Area novelist and playwright Greg Sarris. Part 3 follows on June 4.
Born and raised in Santa Rosa, novelist and playwright Greg Sarris is the author of six books. His best-known work, Grand Avenue, is a collection of short stories about contemporary Native American life, based on his own life. Sarris has been a professor in Writing and Native American Studies at Sonoma State University since 2005, and he is currently serving his fifteenth term as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, his tribe, which was formerly known as the Federated Coast Miwok.
Citizen is the tale of Salvador, born in the U.S., raised in Mexico, son of an American Indian mother and a Mexican father. He has returned to California to find his mother, or rather, her grave. Working in the fields and ranches around Santa Rosa, he meets his mother's family, encountering both kindness and opportunism, as well as glimmers of hope. An American citizen who speaks no English, Salvador procures his proof of citizenship and begins to discover his true identity, and what it means to belong.
We talk with solo performer Mark McGoldrick, about his four-part monthly series Countercoup - A Life, Redux, available via The Marsh’s MarshStream. As assistant public defender for Alameda County, McGoldrick has defended poor people, mostly of color, in the criminal courts for over 25 years. In the early 1980s, as a barely-in control teenager, he broke many bones, including his neck, and has navigated the world as a paralyzed person since.
In the four episodes of Countercoup, McGoldrick chronicles his harrowing journey from juvenile delinquency to Harvard Law School, and on to representing people charged with those same offenses of his earlier days. His stories draw from these worlds, exploring people on the fringes.
The series started on May 1 and 2 with Riding for a Fall and will continue on June 5 and 6 with Close to the Edge. Part 3 follows on July 3/4, and part 4 on August 7/8.
Plus, Open Air’s regular contributor and critic at large, Peter Robinson, talks with friend and violist Jennifer Douglass, about how orchestras have survived the pandemic, and what lies ahead.
Jennifer Douglass earned degrees from Oberlin and Juilliard. Since 1999, she has been the principal violist of the Marin Symphony. She began playing with the New Century Chamber Orchestra in 2008 and joined the group in 2010. For the Marin Symphony, she also serves as director of education and community outreach.
Open Air with host David Latulippe, heard live on Thursday, May 27 at 1pm, to be archived at this location thereafter. Listen now or anytime…