The Los Angeles Poverty Department Dramatizes 1998 Congressional Hearing at Three Sites in Los Angeles

 

Performance & Post-Show Public Discussions Schedule:

 

 

 

Saturday, May 21 / REDCAT / Agents & Assets Benefit Performance
Discussion: Endless Wars: Drugs and Terror Benefit
Panelists: Alfred McCoy, historian, University of Wisconsin, Madison; author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.
Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.

Wednesday, May 25 / The Democracy Forum at The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
Discussion: Journalism, Propaganda & the War on Drugs
Panelists: Alfred McCoy, historian, University of Wisconsin; author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
Robert Parry, editor IF magazine; reporter who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for AP and Newsweek; author of Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

Sunday, May 29 / Compton Community College
Discussion: Then & Now: Proposition 36 and the Prison Industrial Complex
Panelists: Dave Fratello, political director of Campaign for New Drug Policies and co-author and campaign manager for Proposition 36.
Susan Burton, founder and executive director of A New Way of Life Foundation that provides basic living needs for homeless women with a history of substance abuse that are in transition from prison or at risk for incarceration. 

 

Agents & Assets in Compton

 

PRESS RELEASE:
The Los Angeles Poverty Department Dramatizes 1998 Congressional Hearing at Three Sites in Los Angeles

 

In a unique theatrical event combining cutting-edge performance with a community conversation on social policy, Artistic Director John Malpede and the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) present Agents & Assets for three performances only designed to highlight the complex relationships and consequences of the U.S. governmentís "war on drugs". LAPD is an award-winning performance company based in Skid Row Los Angeles. Agents & Assets is remounted in conjunction with LAPD's Twentieth Anniversary. (See complete performance schedule and ticket information below.

 

A theater piece born out of detailed transcripts might be somewhat dry, hardly the stuff of high drama. With Malpede at the helm, however, provocative seems more the operative word. — Victoria Looseleaf, Downtown News, 2001

In Agents & Assets, LAPD addresses the U.S. government's escalating "war on drugs". Agents & Assets dramatizes a 1998 Congressional Hearing about allegations of CIA involvement in cocaine trafficking to fund the Nicaraguan Contras at a time when such activities had been expressly forbidden by Congress. The issues addressed by Agents & Assets foreshadow current events and rest at the very core of our notions of democracy, civil liberties, and the separation of powers. The performance exposes the misuse of U.S. intelligence agencies by the executive branch of the government and links the subordination of communities here and abroad to dubious covert and overt foreign policy operations, including the war on terror. "When government policy is predicated on deception, the republic is in jeopardy," says Malpede.

Each performance of Agents & Assets is followed by public discussion. The arts and culture are pivotal to a civic discussion of the costs of a real politik in which “the ends justify the means.” Agents & Assets invites its audience to consider the actions of the U.S. Government; whether it is in a distant country or downtown Los Angeles. "Theater is best when it promotes a community conversation about the issues that affect our real lives," says Malpede. To move the conversation forward, Agents & Assets brings together civic, arts, and community activists; specialists on various aspects of the drug trade; and those on the front lines with firsthand experience of ill-conceived government policies.

The Los Angeles Poverty Department has become one of the countryís most outspoken and profound theater troupes. — Real Detroit, 2004.

The entire Agents & Assets script is taken from the hearing transcript. Congressmen and women and the CIA Inspector General are played by on-the-ground veterans of the "war on drugs". The lives of the cast members have been radically impacted by drug use, either because they were formerly addicted, or simply because they live in communities that have been devastated by drugs and the drug war.

As the name clearly states, the "war on drugs" imposes a military solution on a public health and social problem. It turns our own citizens into 'the enemy' and victimizes them and their communities. —John Malpede

Los Angeles Poverty Department was founded in 1985 in acknowledgement of the inherently social process of theater. The group has historically used theater with other means of public education, organizing, partnering, and activism. Agents & Assets gives voice to the people whose communities have been most devastated by drugs and counterproductive drug policies. Agents & Assets is a national theater project that puts day-to-day experiences in a larger social and political context while exposing the root causes and policies that help perpetuate poverty.

The Los Angeles Poverty Department, despite the homeless status of many of its members, has thrived for years from its downtown outpost and continues to offer theater that's often stunning in its honesty and lack of pretension. — C. Monaghan, LA Weekly

Peter Sellars, Adele Yellin, Jodie Evans, Thom Mayne, and LAPD Board President Larry Lavin are Co-Chairs for a Special Benefit performance of Agents & Assets on Saturday, May 21, 2005 hosted by The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT). The performance will set the stage for a discussion with drug historian, Alfred McCoy and ACLU Executive Director, Ramona Ripston. The conversation continues at a party that follows with Los Angeles Poverty Department players, panelists, arts, civic, and business leaders.

Performance & Post-Show Public Discussions Schedule:

Saturday, May 21 / REDCAT / 6:30 PM
Agents & Assets Benefit Performance
Discussion: Endless Wars: Drugs and Terror Benefit
Panelists: Alfred McCoy, historian, University of Wisconsin, Madison; author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.
Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.

Wednesday, May 25 / The Democracy Forum / 7:30 PM
Agents & Assets performance
Discussion: Journalism, Propaganda & the War on Drugs
Panelists: Alfred McCoy, historian, University of Wisconsin; author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
Robert Parry, editor IF magazine; reporter who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for AP and Newsweek; author of Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

The Democracy Forum at The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, 111 No. Central Avenue, Los Angeles (corner First Street & Central Avenue across from the Japanese American National Museum).

Sunday, May 29 / Compton Community College / 3:00 PM
Agents & Assets Performance
Discussion: Then & Now: Proposition 36 and the Prison Industrial Complex
Panelists: Dave Fratello, political director of Campaign for New Drug Policies and co-author and campaign manager for Proposition 36.
Susan Burton, founder and executive director of A New Way of Life Foundation that provides basic living needs for homeless women with a history of substance abuse that are in transition from prison or at risk for incarceration.

Susan Barton is also involved with "all of us or none". An organization working to build unity and a program of action so we can effectively combat  the many forms of discrimination that faces 30 million people who are living with felony convictions.

Compton Community College, in the Forum of the Allied Health Building, 1111 East Artesia Boulevard, Compton.

These performances are made possible through support from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department; the California Community Foundation; and the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Additional funding has been provided by Old Stories: New Lives. LAPD also acknowledges the Nathan Cummings Foundation and Animating Democracy, an initiative of Americans for the Arts with funding from the Ford Foundation, for its major support of Agents & Assets from 2002 to 2004.

PRESS RELEASE UPDATE Contact: Susan Martin 505 685 4664
3 May 2005 This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Visuals available upon request. For media inquiries call Martin Wolfe,
Susan Martin 505 685 4664 or Karen Wolfe 310 823 4204