Yo Miss: Transforming Trauma Into Art
Written, Performed & Live-Sound Engineered by Judith Sloan
Dramaturgy by Morgan Jenness
Script Consultant Warren Lehrer
Josh Henderson on violin and Andrew Griffin on viola (March 4-6)
Andrew Griffin on viola (March 11-13)
Includes Original Music Composed by: Frank London,
MiWi La Lupa, David Krakauer, Taylor Rivelli, Adam MJ Hill,
Red Ukachukwu, Guy Klucevsek, Dave Guy,
Touré “Southpaw” Harris, Josh Henderson
Collaborating Engineers: Josh Valleau, Deep Singh
& Touré “Southpaw” Harris
Lighting Consultant: Sabrina Hamilton
and voice & music of Immortal Technique
Fusing the art of theatre, poetry, and music, Yo Miss! is a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always truth-telling show about immigrant/refugee teenagers and incarcerated youth grappling with the cataclysmic events that shaped them. Using midi-controllers and an original musical score to accompany her compelling performance, Sloan remixes her own traumatic experiences with those of her students and transforms into a multitude of characters ages 14 to 80 years young. Sloan looks at the ripple effects of the Holocaust on her family and how that interconnects with refugees today. Yo Miss! has the potential to create much needed understanding amid the inflammatory rhetoric that outweighs reason in our current electoral season.
Actress, radio/audio producer, Judith Sloan, known for her one woman performances and her collaboration with Warren Lehrer on Crossing the BLVD a multimedia project winner of the Brendan Gill Prize (2004), spent 15 years performing and teaching in schools and jails where she encountered and reported on immigration stories, cultural clashes, and generation gaps. YO MISS! Is a project of EarSay a non-profit dedicated to portraying the lives of the uncelebrated. Developed with support from Viper Records, Queens Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, the International High School. Part of the proceeds from YO MISS! Go to support EarSay’s Youth Voices arts-in-education projects in theatre, art, and writing for immigrant youth.
Find out more on their website!
“this deeply felt and richly entertaining show frames its earthy soulfulness in high-concept theater with ease…
It’s a fully realized piece of inventive theater that packs a punch – and a lesson.”
“In listening to what people have to say, Judith Sloan captures the essence of their lives…She is one part Studs Terkel, one part Lily Tomlin, two-parts originality.”
~ The Herald Bloomington, Indiana
This is an art you can trust to tell the truth in vivid detail, and Sloan renews the original mission of radio and writing in the process. These are wonderful sound pieces.”
~ Andrei Codrescu, poet, novelist, commentator NPR’s All Things Considered
Ms. Sloan’s art and teaching cross-pollinate: She uses immigrant stories that she and her husband wrote about — dozens of them are included in a 2003 book, “Crossing the BLVD”—to demonstrate how to shape narrative and to get students talking about their lives. And the students flood her with new material. As she helps the students compose the performance, she is also coming full circle with a new work of her own. “YO MISS!”.
~ Anne Barnard, New York Times