 Agents & Assets
In January we resume our national residency project on drug policy
with a residency in New York, working with Housing Works a visionary
provider of housing for homeless people with HIV/ AIDS. During that
month we'll build the show with 8 cast members from Housing
Works and 6 from LA.
Agents & Assets invites its audience to consider the
actions of the U.S. Government, whether it is in a distant country or
in New York.
 Open rehearsals: Monday through Friday from 6 till 9 pm. St. Augustine Church; 292 Henry Street, lower Manhattan.
'Agents & Assets' will be performed in 3 boroughs of New York.
Each performance will be followed by a panel in discussion with the
audience.
* Wednesday, Jan. 30 at 6:30 pm at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby St. in Mahattan (one half block South of Houston) B,D, F,V line to Broadway-Lafayette St.
On the panel: Deborah Small, Executive Director of ‘Break the Chains’; Chloe Dugger, field organizer for the NYCLU and Vivian Nixon, criminal justice advocate and director of the College and Community Fellowship at the City University of NY.
* Thursday, Jan. 31 at 7 pm at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, 521 W. 126 St. in Harlem (one block East of Broadway) 1 line to 125 Street
On the panel: Deborah Small, Executive Director of ‘Break the Chains,’ and Nellie Hester Bailey, co-founder and director of the Harlem tenants Council.
* Friday, Feb. 1 at 6 pm at Housing Works in the East Brooklyn, 2640 Pitkin Av (walk three blocks West between Chrystal and Fountain) A line to Euclid Av
On the panel: Tamara Oyola-Santiago, Housing Works issues
organizer for NYC, will address the war on drugs, the US syringe
exchange policy and the Puerto Rico aids crisis and Divine Pryor,
director of the Center for New Leadership at Medgar Evers College will
talk about the impact on Black men and women and their communities of
the convergence of mass incarceration, unemployment and
disenfranchisement and what to do about it.
 TV1 interviews Cesar Figueroa at Housing Works Bookstore
"Local ex-addicts key assets in play about war on drugs" Read the New York Daily News
Tom Jones who directed
award-winning documentary on LAPD: The REAL DEAL will film the residency process for a documentary.
 The cast: Mickey Key, Henriëtte Brouwers, Lynette Key, John Malpede, Cesar Figueroa, Tony Parker, Brenda Cyrus, Kymbali Craig, KevinMichael Key, Rickey Mantley,Melina Bielefelt, Thabbit Iddin.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Sam Rudy and Charlie Siedenburg
Sam Rudy Media Relations, 212-221-8466
NY PREMIERE OF “AGENTS & ASSETS”
A THEATRICAL PRODUCTION BASED ON A CONGRESSIONAL HEARING OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S “WAR ON DRUGS” (WHO BROUGHT THE DRUGS TO THE U.S?)
LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT (LAPD) in conjunction with NYC's Housing Works
Wednesday, January 30 at 6:30pm at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
Thursday, January 31 at 7:00pm at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Harlem
Friday, February 1 at 6:00pm at Housing Works in East New York, Brooklyn
FREE ADMISSION
Post-performance Discussions on Drug Policy and their far-reaching effects
New York, NY – The U.S. government's multi-billion-dollar "war on
drugs" comes under unusual theatrical scrutiny when AGENTS & ASSETS
-- a play that dramatizes a 1998 Congressional hearing on drug
trafficking -- receives its New York premiere by the West Coast
theatre troupe, Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) for three
performances at various locations in New York: Wednesday, January 30 at
6:30pm at Housing Works Bookstore Café (126 Crosby St.); Thursday,
January 31 at 7:00pm St. Mary's Episcopal Church (521 W. 126 St.) and
Friday, February 1 at 6:00pm at the Housing Works (2640 Pitkin Ave.) in
the East New York section of Brooklyn. For further information on
these NYC-area performances call 718-687-7942. Admission is FREE.
LAPD -- which has performed AGENTS & ASSETS to great acclaim
previously in Los Angeles, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore
and the Netherlands -- takes the unusual measure when casting each
production of AGENTS & ASSETS to combine five actors from the LAPD
troupe with eight additional local citizens who are real-life veterans
of the crack cocaine epidemic in the respective cities where the play
is presented. LAPD -- which is presenting AGENTS & ASSETS in
conjunction with Housing Works in NYC -- will be in residence in
January rehearsing with local cast members, conducting community
workshops, outreach activities, and post-performance discussions with
panelists and audience members.
This unique and provocative form of "community theater," according to
John Malpede, founder and artistic director of LAPD, highlights the
intricate relationships and consequences of the U.S. government's "war
on drugs," allowing the audience to AGENTS & ASSETS as well as the
performers to see how U.S. drug policies here and in far away places
like Nicaragua, etc. impact local communities, drug-torn families,
their friends and neighbors. "This approach brings a lived experience
to the drug policies that have created that experience," says Malpede,
who also serves as director of AGENTS & ASSETS. "It also allows us
to consider what happens when something is labeled a 'war.'"
AGENTS & ASSETS is a brisk, 75-minute verbatim account of a key
Congressional hearing in 1998 about allegations of CIA involvement in
cocaine trafficking to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. The hearing --
conducted by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the
committee charged with the oversight of the government's intelligence
agencies -- was held on the occasion of the CIA Inspector General's
report denying allegations of CIA involvement in crack cocaine
trafficking to fund the Nicaraguan Contras at a time when Congress had
expressly forbidden such activities.
According to LAPD, at the heart of the issues addressed by AGENTS &
ASSETS is the misuse of U.S. intelligence agencies by the executive
branch of the government, events that continue to resonate today when
considered alongside the U.S. rush to war in Iraq, and other government
actions and policies.
The entire AGENTS & ASSETS script is taken from the hearing transcript,
which was edited for length by Mr. Malpede. Congressmen / women and
the CIA Inspector General, are played by on- the-ground veterans of the
crack epidemic, people whose lives have been radically impacted by
crack, either because they are formerly addicted, or simply because
they live in communities that have been devastated by drugs and the
drug war.
AGENTS & ASSETS’ director John Malpede says, "The 'War on Drugs',
as the name clearly states, imposes a military solution on a public
health and social problem, and in doing so, turns our own citizens into
'the enemy' and then proceeds to victimize our citizens and their
communities." AGENTS & ASSETS invites its audience to consider the
actions of the U.S. Government, whether it is in a distant country or
in New York.
According to Downtown News in L.A., "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,” stated Victoria Looseleaf of Los Angeles’ Downtown
News, January 8, 2001. The Los Angeles Times has written, "For LAPD
the weapons are words, explored by actors who have seen policies turned
into street-level experience."
Admission to AGENTS & ASSETS is Free. For more information about
AGENTS & ASSETS on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at 6:30pm at Housing Works
Bookstore Café (126 Crosby St.) call 212 334 3324; on Thursday, Jan. 31
at 7:00pm St. Mary's Episcopal Church (521 W. 126 St.) call 212 864
4013; and Friday, Feb. 1 at 6:00pm at Housing Works (2640 Pitkin Ave.)
in Brooklyn. For further information on these NYC-area performances
call 718-687-7942.
------------------------------------------
Each performance of AGENTS & ASSETS is followed by public discussion.
Discussions topics have included: treatment vs. incarceration, arts and
recovery, and the rhetoric of war. Discussion participants will
include Deborah Small, director of Break the Chains; Chloe Duger of the
ACLU in New York; Nellie Hester Bailey, Co-Founder and Director Harlem
Tenants Council; and Vivian Nixon, Executive Director College and
Community Fellowship, CUNY Graduate Center.
The LAPD states that it wants the audience to take home “a better
understanding of how national and international political decisions
influence their lives” and “to encourage people to address and share
their political concerns within their community.”
LAPD’s National Project AGENTS & ASSETS is made possible through support of the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
Please note that all programming, times and locations are subject to change.
ABOUT LAPD
Los Angeles Poverty Department was founded in 1985 by John Malpede.
Based in LA's skid row, LAPD creates performance work that connects
lived experience to the social forces that shape the lives and
communities of people living in poverty. LAPD is committed to creating
high-quality, challenging performances that express the realities,
hopes, and dreams of people who live and work in Los Angeles’ Skid Row,
and is dedicated to building community and to the artistic and personal
development of its members. For more information visit
www.lapovertydept.org
"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
lacking in pretension," stated L.A. Weekly in its Pick of the Week
section. "The Los Angeles Poverty Department has become one of the
country’s most outspoken and profound theater troupes,” adds Real
Detroit.
Other works by John Malpede include RFK IN EKY in 2004, a recreation of
Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 "war on poverty" tour. The play was performed
in five counties in eastern Kentucky. LAPD's most recent production
presented in 2007 was UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA about L.A.'s Skid Row and the
social, economic and cultural conflicts that are shaping the future of
downtown Los Angeles.
ABOUT HOUSING WORKS
Housing prevents AIDS.
Housing improves health.
Housing Works is committed to ending the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness.
Housing Works strives to ensure that homeless and low-income people
living with HIV/AIDS and their families have adequate housing, food,
social support, drug treatment, health care, and employment. Housing
Works is especially committed to serving those who have difficulty
obtaining services elsewhere because they struggle with mental illness
or chemical dependency.
Housing Works seeks to achieve its goals in the context of a
self-sustaining, healing community that maximizes the potential of the
people living with HIV/AIDS whom it serves. Our mission stands in
accord with Article 25 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights that:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health
and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing,
housing, and medical care and necessary social services, and the right
to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond
his control."
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