Brava presents
Not My First Pandemic
JUNE 24 - 26, 2021
8pm at Brava Theater Center
Live! In-Person Engagment!
Written & Performed by César Cadabes
Directed by Kat Evasco
What kind of community can survive two pandemics? César Cadabes’ one man show takes a closer look at what a Gay Filipino man goes through traveling from Hawaii to San Francisco. It is a journey where he discovers his most empowered self with a community that helps him survive the AIDS pandemic and enables him to thrive during the COVID pandemic. While there is now a COVID vaccine, there is none for AIDS after 40 years from the first reported cases. Self love, community love, romantic love and political protests intersect in César’s important story. This is not just a one man show, but a bridge to a better understanding of the AIDS pandemic and its importance to the current pandemic.
TICKETS
$15 - $30 sliding scale
With no additional taxes or fees
Thursday, June 24, 8pm
Friday, June 25, 8pm
Saturday, June 26, 8pm
For this engagement, Brava is limiting seating capacity to 45%, with 164 tickets available for sale per performance. Tickets must be purchased in advance and assigned seating is required. Only vaccinated persons may attend as patrons at this time.*
Brava has undertaken appropriate modifications to comply with current health and safety protocols provided by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. These measures include requiring vaccination, mandatory face covering that completely covers nose and mouth, secured with ear loops or head strap (gaiters and bandanas are not acceptable), increased cleaning before performances, and a no-touch or low-touch experience.
* Full vaccination is defined as completion of the two-dose regimen of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered two weeks or more in advance of the concert to be attended.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
César Cadabes / Writer and Performer
Kat Evasco / Director and Producer
Gayle Romasanta / Dramaturg
Joan Osato / Project Design
Drea Schwartz / Light Design
Joshua Icban / Sound Design
Maximilian Urruzmendi / Stage Manager and Technical Director
César Cadabes is a Gay Filipino American writer, actor and storyteller who has presented his work Coming to America in May 2017 and Anal Sex in May 2018 for the Resilience Archives’ Performing Visible Resilience. He introduced his solo performance, #Resist, directed by Kat Evasco, at Bindlestiff Studio’s 2018 production of Queer as Fuck. #Resist was selected to be performed at the 2018 APAture Performing Arts Showcase, an annual multidisciplinary arts festival celebrating emerging Asian and Pacific Islander artists in San Francisco.
In the summer of 2019, César was selected as a fellow for the Interdisciplinary Writers Lab (IWL), a 3-month, multi-genre master class for local writers of color, a collaboration between Kearny Street Workshop and the Asian Art Museum.
César is a 2021 artist-in-residence at the Queer Cultural Center. He is also a recipient of a 2020 Individual Artist Commission grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. In addition to his solo performance work, he is the Artistic Director of GAPA Theatre, an intergenerational collective of Queer Asian and Pacific Islander writers and storytellers. He has produced GAPA Theatre’s work at Bindlestiff Studio and the Asian Art Museum. César also serves on the Advisory Board of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District.
Kat Evasco is a queer, Pinay immigrant writer, theater artist and content creator committed to honoring and celebrating the experiences of immigrants, women and lgbtq communities. In 2020, Kat was awarded the Kenneth Rainin New & Experimental Works (NEW) Program Grant towards the premiere of her new play Be Like Waterproduced by Brava Women in the Arts. Building on the success of her autobiographical one-woman show Mommy Queerest co-written by John Caldon, Kat supports artists to produce solo shows. Kat’s current solo theater projects include directing Prieto by Yosimar Reyes. She is a 2018 Lambda Literary Fellow in Playwriting and her works have been featured on Deadline, IndieWire, Vice, Shondaland, Bustle, The Advocate, Out Magazine, and NBC News Asian America. Kat currently serves as the Director of Artist Leadership at the Center for Cultural Power and holds a BA in Asian American Studies from San Francisco State University.
Gayle Romasanta is a writer/artist from Stockton, California. Her work has appeared on television, radio, online and in journals and books, such as the New York Times, Time, Smithsonian Magazine, Harvard University’s Education Next Journal, KQED’s The Forum, ABS-CBN, and more. She co-authored the first book about labor leader Larry Itliong, "Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong" with the late and great historian Dr. Dawn Mabalon. Formerly, she was the artistic director for Bindlestiff Studio, the only Filipino American theater space in the US. Currently, she is an artist-in-residence at Brava! For Women in the Arts, in San Francisco.
The presentation of Not My First Pandemic was supported in part by the San Francisco Arts Commission.