A National and International Residency Performance Project

AGENTS & ASSETS is a Residency Performance Project which seeks to give voice to the people whose communities have been most devastated by drugs and counterproductive drug policies. The text of Agents & Assets is a March 18, 1998, hearing transcript from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The allegations in question in this session were made in a 1996 series of articles by journalist Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News, which alleged CIA involvement in crack cocaine trafficking into the Los Angeles area. With Agents and Assets LAPD puts day to day experiences in a larger social and political context while exposing the root causes and policies that help perpetuate poverty. 

 

"Recreating Imbalance" : A short description by John Malpede that describes the conceptual links between Agents & Assets and RFKinEKY.

 

The Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) was founded in 1985 in acknowledgement of the inherently social process of theater. The organization has historically used theater with other means of public education, organizing, partnering and activism to call attention to the plight of the poor. With Agents and Assets, LAPD has initiated 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.

 

press about Agents & Assets:

1. Los Angeles Downtown News 2001- LAPD Deploys Its "Agents & Assets'
2. New Times Los Angeles 2001- Community Theater
   
3. Los Angeles Weekly 2001 - Intinerary: The War on Drugs
4. Panorama 2002 - They're the LAPD, but their justice is done on the stage
5. Michigan Chronicle 2002 - L.A. group presents crack epidemic drama
6. Michigan Citizen 2002 - Drug war theme of new play
7. Plain Dealer 2004 - An in-depth look at U.S. drug war
8. Angle 2004 by Linda Eisenstein
9. KCRW 2005 - Agents & Assets: page 4+5
10. Los Angeles Times 2005 - For this LAPD, the weapons are words
11. Philadelphia Daily News 2006 - Troupe from the 'Hood
12. New York Daily News 2008 - Local ex-addicts key assets in play about war on drugs
13. Los Tiempos 2009 - Bolivia y EEUU juntos en 'Agentes y Activos'
14. Los Tiempos 2009 - Grupo teatral de EEUU critica política antidroga de su país.
15. Los Tiempos 2009 - Estrenan 'Agentes y Activos' sobre la política de EEUU
16. La Patria, Oruro 2009 - Obra teatral 'Agentes Y Activos' se estrena hoy en Oruro
17. La Opinion 2009 - Función de teatro hoy en la Plaza Principal
18. Z Magazine 2009 - Fearful Symmetry in Bolivia
19. American Theater 2010 - Counting the Cost