Overview

Thank you for joining us for a fun and provocative evening filled with bold performers who all share a commitment to health justice! We laughed out loud, enjoyed dynamic performances, met fellow activists, and learn more about Breast Cancer Action’s work.

If you joined us for the VIP Reception before the show, you had the opportunity to savor delicious hors d’oeuvres, refreshing beverages and an exclusive musical performance!

Thursday, June 27, 2019
VIP Reception from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Variety Show from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:15 p.m.)
Piano Fight – 144 Taylor St, San Francisco, CA
VIP Tickets: $85
General Admission: $35

Host: Guinevere Q

Guinevere Q is an activist, poet, award winning composer, and musician in The Wyatt Act and Doctor Striker. Q holds a degree in Psychology from The University of San Francisco and has worked 6 years in the non-profit community mental health field to support people recovering from mental illness. After changing careers to become a full time musician and, recently, beginning the Apprenticeship Program in Local 510 Sign and Display Union, Guinevere has organized and hosted many benefits for important causes, including “It’s a Woman’s World : Benefit for #WomenCrush Music” at The Independent, “House Meeting : Benefit for the SF Tenants Union”, and Benefit for the Alena Museum. Q is honored to be hosting The 7th Annual “Acting Out – For The Health Of It” Variety Show and Fundraiser and truly believes that we are not meant to be disconnected in isolation, but to grow together – to root in and to branch out.

PERFORMERS:

Molly Sanchez—comedy.

Molly Sanchez is a writer, comedian, and lover of burritos everywhere. She’s performed standup and improv at The Los Angeles Comedy Store, the Del Close Marathon, SF Sketchfest and various hives of scum and villainy all over the world. She writes sketches for Killing My lobster, Nice Tan and once had a Frankenstein/Helen Keller fan fiction published in a book called Loose Lips:Fanfiction Parodies of Great (and Terrible) Literature from the Smutty Stage of Shipwreck. You can hear her on Red All Over: A handmaids tale recap podcast or on twitter @seriousmolly where she rants about Ella Enchanted.

Members of Kitka and Zele—Abigail Arons and Erin Lashnits Herman

Abigail Arons first discovered the gorgeous dissonance of Eastern European folk music by attending a concert of the Yale Women’s Slavic Chorus as an undergraduate. She joined the chorus in 1996 and has been singing ever since. She currently sings with Zele, a Slavic chorus in Berkeley led by Kitka member Janet Kutulas. As a public health researcher, advocate, and breast cancer thriver, Abigail was thrilled to serve on Breast Cancer Action’s Board of Directors from 2013 to 2019 and continues to support the organization.

Erin Lashnits Herman grew up on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, and moved to the Bay Area in 2005. Her love of Eastern European folk music began as an undergraduate at Yale University, where she was a member of the Yale Women’s Slavic Chorus from 2000-2003, serving as director in her final year. After spending her twenties playing in a bluegrass band, studying yoga, and traveling, she returned to Yale for nursing school. She joined Kitka in 2015, and still can’t believe how incredibly lucky she is to be able to sing this beautiful, powerful music with these beautiful, powerful women. In her spare time, she works as a family nurse practitioner at La Clínica de la Raza in Oakland. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, their two young daughters, and their very sweet dog.

Richard Leiter—music at VIP reception

As a keyboard performer you may have heard Richard Leiter playing the jazz piano tracks on one of the recent CBS Charlie Brown Specials, and the Met Life or Shell “Peanuts” commercials. His playing and singing have also been featured in projects for the Sheraton Hotels, Tropicana, Paramount Pictures as well as projects for NBC and CBS. As a singer/pianist he puts a unique jazz/r&b spin on Gershwin, Jobim, Motown and the Beatles at venues like Martuni’s, Castagnola’s and the Claremont. As a musical comedy improviser he has worked with The Groundlings, True Fiction Magazine and Bay Area TheaterSports in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He performs regularly in SF clubs with the jazz group REBOP and for the last fifteen years he’s been a Contributing Editor at Keyboard Magazine. As a composer, Rich has created and produced music for hundreds of TV & Radio projects for clients like Honda, Citibank, FOX/TV, Mattel, Carl’s Jr., Wal-Mart, Warner Bros., Disney, Tropicana, Kawasaki, ABC/TV and National Public Radio. You can view his work at www.richjingles.com.

Calafia Armada—music

Calafia Armada is a diverse collective of performers telling the story of the first and only warrior queen of California through the rhythms and melodies of the Caribbean coast of Colombia and Mexico.The band emerged in February of 2016 when musicians from various local bands were drawn together by a mutual fascination with Cumbia and its cousin rhythms from around the Caribbean. The first members came from the La Ceiba and Puyakan music collectives, but the complex rhythms and the story of Calafia soon attracted some of most intrepid musicians in the Bay Area to fill out a lineup that includes two guitars, bass, trumpet, trombone, vocal harmonies, and over a dozen different percussion instruments such as the Tambora and the Quijada. Calafia Armada is Angelito, Angelón, Dr. Andrew, Jeff, Jose, Jules, Lea La Loba, Michaël, Nati, and Yousef. View more at www.calafiaarmada.com.

April Johnson Stearns—Reader

April Johnson Stearns is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of WILDFIRE Magazine. April grew up on a 43-acre Christmas tree farm with horses, chickens, dogs, cats, and a couple of co-conspirators in the form of younger brothers. The closest neighbor was a half-mile away. Like most who don’t know what they have till it’s gone, she spent her teen years desperate to be “normal” and live in a town. Now she lives with her husband and young daughter on the coast of California in a real-life town where she can see and hear her neighbors almost all the time, but she can also ride her bike down to the beach at a moment’s notice to watch the sunset. Although she does love town life, she also likes to get away from all the hustle and bustle whenever she can to hike in the woods. Diagnosed at 35 with IDC, stage IIIb, HER2+, April launched WILDFIRE Magazine 4 years later in 2016 as a way to create community through storytelling as it pertains to young women diagnosed with breast cancer.

Mary Ladd—Reader

Mary’s writing has appeared in: California Magazine, Playboy, Time Magazine/Extra Crispy, Health, the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, and in four anthologies, including the Writing Humor Lit Starts, forthcoming by Abrams Noterie in September 2019.

Mary belongs to the San Francisco Writers Grotto and was a Community of Writers guest reader for the 2018 Writers Workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and memoir at Squaw Valley, and winner of Litquake’s essay contest. Mary worked with Anthony Bourdain on his San Francisco TV shoots and is an active member of BAYS (Bay Area Young Survivors).

Thank you to our Sponsors

Headliner

Opening Act
Karen Klein and Ben Golvin
Richard Grosboll
Peggy Huston