Rights of Passage: Rights of Passage Grant

Friday, November 13, 2009

Rights of Passage Grant

James Hormel of the Small Change Foundation

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Acquiring funds for research and development of a new project is always the most difficult. It requires a huge leap of faith on the part of the donor as the project for which support is sought is embryonic at best.

James Hormel and his Small Change Foundation have taken the leap with us for a second year by awarding us another $15K gift to pursue the further development of our new play on international LGBT Human Rights progress. We are not only grateful to Jim for his generous gift to Rights of Passage but also for his steadfast vanguard leadership on behalf of our community.

The Small Change Foundation grant will enable us to visit Africa, Central Europe, and return to Indonesia in 2010. We intend to conduct additional interviews with activists and will further study cultural, political and geographic factors that shape perceptions for and about the LGBT community around the globe. These elements are core ingredients to the story-telling and are necessary in order to provide a well informed, broadly represented, and authentic foundation for the scripting of the play.

For those of you so inclined, additional gifts are always welcome and can be made by clicking on the make a donation to support Rights of Passage link on this page. Your gifts will be put to good use as we complete the world premiere of the play scheduled for the 2012-13 season at NCTC.

Our thanks to all of you, as well as to James Hormel and his team at The Small Change Foundation.

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What is Rights of Passage?

Rights of Passage is a new play about courage and love. About people all over the world who want to be who they are and why that simple concept is not always so simple to make real. The play is both personal and universal as it illuminates the lives of LGBT people from different cultures and backgrounds. The storytelling style of the play is based on the ageless performance techniques found on the Indonesian island of Bali; these same theatrical techniques, in somewhat different forms, also represent cultures throughout the world. Monologues, scenes, puppetry, masks, and dance will bring the play’s stories to life. Rights of Passage has been developed through extensive research, hundreds of interviews, and the unyielding support of LGBT citizens and activists around the world. Rights of Passage will have its world premiere at The New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco, beginning its run on August 17, 2012.

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Project Background

In the summer of 2007 we began our research for Rights of Passage, a new play project for The New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco http://www.nctcsf.org/. At the same time, The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) http://www.iglhrc.org/ in New York enthusiastically offered their support to the development of the play. Their assistance ignited our relationships with the vast international LGBT human rights network . ILGHRC continues as a primary guiding force for Rights of Passage, as does the work of Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/ and Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/

The themes in Rights of Passage are based upon the Yogyakarta Principles http://www.yogyakartaprinciples.org/ a set of international principles relating to sexual orientation and gender identity. This document is a universal guide to human rights which affirm binding international legal standards with which all States must comply. They promise a different future where all people born free and equal in dignity and rights can fulfill that precious birthright.

Thanks to the power of the internet we are able to reach out to LGBT organizations, individuals, and our allies around the globe. We have also traveled traveled througout the US, Europe, Canada, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia conducting research for the play. Our future travel plans will take us to the Middle East, Africa, China, South America and the Ukraine.

Rights of Passage is supported in part by The James Hormel Small Change Foundation and the generosity of individual donors world wide. We welcome new sponsors at http://www.nctcsf.org/donation