upcoming

Prize of Hope

What:

Kick off of the 2010 Mad River Festival. Catered dinner, awards ceremony, live music. Recipients are David Simpson, Jane Lapiner and Human Nature of Petrolia. Sliding scale $75-150.

David Simpson, Jane Lapiner and Human Nature of Petrolia, California have been selected to receive the 2010 Prize of Hope. This international award is given to a person or theatre “who has worked for human hope in a daring, loving, vulgar, serious, poetic, manner with sparkling energy. It is given to those who encourage people to use their own eyes, ears and voice.”
Denmark’s Institute for Popular Theatre established The Prize of Hope to recognize live theatre as a popular and accessible art form and work against the role of art as passive consumerism. Today, the Institute for Popular Theatre has more than 30 theatres and 100 individuals as members throughout Scandinavia.
The Prize of Hope was established  by Lars Olsen and Birthe Rosenfeldt in 1987 at Aasen Teater in Denmark. It is given for an effort over time, not just for a single production or event. In 2008 Dell’Arte was invited to be a partner in the Prize of Hope and award it in California every other year. In 2008 it was awarded in California for the first time to Tim Robbins and The Actors Gang. Dell’Arte received the award in 2005.
Human Nature creates original theatre pieces about important environmental and social issues. Working out of a vine-covered rustic barn overlooking the mouth of the Mattole River in rural Petrolia, California, Human Nature is internationally known for the development of cutting edge theatre, biting political satire, zany musical comedy and the belief in the necessity to bridge the relationship between human culture and the natural world.
Founded by Jane Lapiner and David Simpson in 1979, out of the “back to the land” movement that originated toward the end of the Haight –Ashbury – “Summer of Love”, 1960’s San Francisco. In their words, they wanted to “ …find a place in the country to raise a family. We wanted to be part of a rural community, to relate directly to the natural world, to figure out how to make our livelihood from it.”  David had worked as an actor with the political theatre company, The San Francisco Mime Troupe. Jane worked in San Francisco as a dancer and choreographer and had choreographed for her own company in the late 1960’s.
In moving to the headwaters of the Mattole River in l970, they saw, “Salmon spawning for the first time. “We also got a clear sense of the relationship of salmon to fresh water and its land base”, Simpson said. The Mattole’s once-great salmon runs had been reduced to a pittance of what they had once been mostly due to massive watershed disturbances during the post World War II logging boom. 
Over time Simpson and Lapiner collaborated with a small group of neighbors and friends to create the Mattole Salmon Group and the Mattole Restoration Council. Their mission was to try to reverse the tide of the declining salmon runs. Today, the Mattole stands as an example of how effective a community can be in protecting the resources of an entire watershed. But in order to accomplish this, they first,had to face the “Timber Wars” and deal with an entire community in turmoil loggers and ranchers vs. environmentalists and watershed restorationists.
There were years of painful conflict that potentially closed down their mission to save the fish. Simpson and Lapiner, though, saw a community in conflict as a call for the creation of a new kind of theatre. HUMAN NATURE was this tool that they applied to the task of helping bring back balance and health to their sorely divided community.
Their first effort in this task was QUEEN SALMON, “a biologically explicit musical comedy for people of several species” * It was a about a rural valley much like their own  but showed, with story and music and dance,how a divided community could be knit back together through the common love of the salmon. Out of the intense crucible of reality, they created a show that helped change that reality in a positive way.
Human Natures next piece, THE WOLF AT THE DOOR, directly explored the human relationship with the wild. And their most recent work, GLOBAL WARMING, THE MUSICAL, turns the old adage, “Think Globally, Act Locally” on its head. Spawned in rural California, this work about climate change has traveled the world to great acclaim.
In 2009, David and Jane were in Copenhagen to cover the Climate Conference for the local press and will go to Bolivia with this theatre work for the  People’s World Conference on Climate Change. They are in the midst of developing a second show about climate change, TWO OLD BIRDS Tripping on the Tipping Point.*
The couple together deeply believe in the visceral connection between the local and the global. These are a theatre company and individuals who also believe in the power of theater and of even-handed humor, to make a difference in how we think about the world and our relationship to nature. They are not wealthy. They do not receive vast amounts of sponsorship or funding. They just do the work, take it on the road, and understand the power of the theatre to carry the import of the relationship in which they have invested their lives – man and the environment.
“I believe David and Jane and the work of Human Nature is the embodiment of the intent and spirit of the Prize of Hope,” said Michael Fields, Producing Artistic Director of Dell’Arte. “They are not working in the mainstream of theatre, but they are in the deep current of how theatre flows in the real life of people on this planet. And along the way, they are affecting the course of how we see our rivers and the creatures who inhabit the world around us. And they are doing it one community at a time. One of the beauties of the Prize of Hope, is that it is given from the bottom up. I am simply awed by the work of these people and how they have used the art of theatre to help change the world.”
Founded in 1971, Dell’Arte is the North America center for theatre training, research, and performance of the actor-creator. We are a committed community of artists who model and share in a sustained ensemble practice. We are a regional arts center that serves the large rural area of the California north coast. Our mission is: International in scope, grounded in the natural living world and inspired by our non-urban setting, Dell’Arte explores theatre making, theatre practice and theatre training for ourselves, the world, and the future. One of our deepest values is engendering the relationship between art and place, artist and community.
The 2010 Prize of Hope, will take place as part of Dell’Arte’s Mad River Festival. 2010 is the 20th anniversary of the Mad River Festival, which presents amazing theatre and music from around the world and down the block. This years festival will open with BLUE LAKE: THE OPERA, an original work by the Dell’Arte Company to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the City of Blue Lake.
The Prize of Hope will be awarded on June 26 with events beginning at 4pm. Dinner and events can be reserved by contacting dharla@dellarte.com

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