Haywood Fennell speaks to Cassandra Cato-Louis about the upcoming Uptown Brings It Downtown arts festival at the Strand Theater. The event is September 4th-7th, and the opening night will feature a youth drop-in drama program as well as a reception on human rights and wage slavery with Human Rights Ambassador Sean Bardoo.
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(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Welcome, hello everybody. Welcome to the other page, radio. Hey, what's in here? Hey, what's in here? Senior, WBCLP, 102.9. If I'm Boston, just so happy to be here today with you. You know, to share some information, talk to a special lady against her friend of mine. She is well known in the community, a theater person, an arts innovator. We got Cassandra, Kato Lewis is here today. - In the house. - She's in the house. You heard of folks, it can't be me. It's gotta be chic. - Hey, what? - What's going on? How you feeling? - Wow, with my hands. - Okay, how you feel? - Do you talk with your hands too? - Sure I do. - Okay, okay. But tell me, how you been, how you been? - I've been really fantastic. So many things are just coming into fruition over this next couple of months. I've gotten this art festival, a mini art festival over at The Strand from. - That's one of the things that you're doing. You're gonna talk about that. - Uh-huh. - So what I'm gonna do, what I wanna do, what I wanna do is I wanna, let you know that I'm gonna take control of this conversation. You're gonna have to initiate anything. I'm gonna ask you about it, okay? - All right. - But before I do any of that, I wanna congratulate you and tell you how much I enjoyed your performance down at the church a couple of months ago. - Oh, the crucifixion or the oratorio? - Yeah, yes. - Oh yeah, that was, that was-- - Look like you was enjoying yourself too. - I was, except for that 14 and a half minutes where I had to stand still. - Yeah, I remember that, I remember that. That's called method acting, right? Okay, because the method was if I moved, my director was gonna show me another method. - Yeah, yeah, she's real serious about what she does. - Verna Hampton. - But, you know, like I said, it was classic. You know, the story, the way it was presented, the venue, the reception by the people I must say in Georgia. So, welcome to our show. You know, we talk about the arts because we are in arts. - Yeah, I'm very happy to be here. - Yes, and thank you for that. We wanted to like also acknowledge your work throughout the community around theater. - Thank you. - You know, today you here to talk about a couple of organizations that I didn't know about. And one of the things, to build a strength is we gotta know who's who and what's going on. - Yeah, they would go. - You know, tell us about this activity that you got in the people that are involved, would you? - I surely will, but should I go back to the question you asked me before that? - Go back to wherever you were. - The theater in Boston. - Yeah, yeah. - So, yes, I've been working with putting stone creatives, Verna Hampton, for the last year or so, and, you know, doing my thing as artistic director of African Repertory Troupe. - Okay. - We do help with productions and acting and whatever, and I actually have a class going at the Luna Fitness Club, where Uptown Dance is located. She's giving me a donated to studio for me to do acting classes. - What's Uptown Dance? - Uptown Dance, Lita. - Yeah, I know Lisa, but where is the located? - It's located at the Luna Fitness Club on Marcy Boulevard, upstairs where the Lambert's gym was. He turned it over to Luna, over the so-fisticated sewing shop right there in Lambert's Plaza behind the bank. And I've been running that since May. - Oh, she's over there now? - She's over there now. And that's part of what the larger purpose of Mattapan cultural arts development is to build a network of artists who live, work, play, or love in Mattapan. And the project is to build artists live, work, space there. - What brought that about? - Well, we didn't have anywhere to play. We only have the couple of schools and you can't use their stage. You can't use their dance studio because the school is in charge. No, the community center is in charge and you go back and forth for months and you never get the space. Only the city can use it past eight o'clock. So, you know, there's nowhere to play. And so we're gonna create a place to play with a dance studio, black box theater, an anchor store like Staples or UPS or something because we also don't have any business places in Mattapan where we can make copies and do faxing and then have a cafe that has a commercial kitchen so that culinary artists can broaden their entrepreneurial offerings because oftentimes they're cooking on the back porch or in a church kitchen or in their own kitchen. And if anything happens, that's not a good thing. And other places that are available are cost prohibitive. So we're trying to make it sort of like a Hailey house but for the entrepreneurs and not for the workers. - Did you see a holy house or a Hailey house? - Hailey. - Well, it'll be holy too because, you know, we got everything, I'm an ordained minister and an initiated high priestess in Yoruba in the IFA tradition. So we got all the bases covered. - That's great, that's great. - So about the art festival and I'll re-send the flyer so you can send it out. We're having it called "Uptown" brings it downtown. - "Uptown" what? - Brings it. - Okay. - Downtown. So being in Matapan, we always say we're up on the hill at the foothills of Blue Hill. And when we started this project of Matapan cultural arts development over 15 years ago, we had the idea to build the arts center there. We went downtown to the then BRA, which is now the BPDA, and said, "Okay, we want to build this arts center." And they say, "Well, there's no artists in Matapan." - We had to prove them wrong. - We had to prove them wrong. - So we're gonna take a break right now. We got Sandra, Cassandra, Akato Lewis, sees our guest today. We're gonna take a little break. This is the other page radio. My name is Segu, and we'll be right back. - Put a frog in boiling water and it'll jump right out. But put a frog in cool water and slowly heat it up. That frog will boil. As veterans, we tell ourselves the lie that we can handle anything. We let the water boil. You are not a frog. If you or a veteran you know needs support, don't wait. Reach out. Find resources at va.gov/reach. That's va.gov/reach. Brought to you by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and the Ad Council. - Are you a veteran or do you know a veteran who is struggling with housing due to COVID-19? - Veterans Inc. can help provide support services, including assistance with rent, deposits, utilities, as well as emergency housing, including hotel stays to eligible struggling veterans. If you or someone you know is in need of services, please call 1-800-482-2565, or go online to www.vetransinc.org. - Back again folks with Cassandra, Kato Lewis, and I hope that you are listening because she's making some real strong points about determination, the need to have coaching enrichment programs in our community. And a lot of people take things for granted when they see them perform on the stage, they think that that's it. You know, just the performers, but how do they get to perform? What is required of our community for them to sustain themselves? These are some of the things we're talking about today, some of the history. She said that folks told her that there was no theater, no theater aspirants in the Matapan community, and that's the big old big old. You know, people need to understand that we use our culture to define who we are. Our theater is our way of teaching the history of struggling triumphs. We're talking about the Matapan cult again. - Cultural arts development. - Okay. - Can you say something about 15 years? - Yep, and they said there were no artists in Matapan. - Okay. - And as I'm saying, we have Lisa Tavares, she lives right around the corner. Her daughter and my daughter went to school together, went through their day. - I know your daughter. - Dad's the last one. - I know your daughter, and I know her daughter too, you know. So, yeah, I'm talking about the importance of understanding your community comes from cultural involvement. - Yes, it does. And she was displaced from up in this corner when the Fairmont Lab came in, where she had been for over 10, 15 years. So, and then we have the Boston rhythm writers, line dance movement, which is also based in Matapan. We have the Pace Academy, which does programming in Matapan at Mildred Absolutely. - Could you say Pace Academy? - Yep, Pace, the-- - Pace, P-A-C-E, okay. - Yeah, and-- - What did they do? - They do theater performing arts in history, African-American history, embedded in their program, and the Franklin Parks Tennis Association. We did a summer in the city program for about two or three years. As a collaboration, we called it LAPS, Learning, Arts, Performance, and Sports. We had dance classes, we had theater classes, we had painting on plain air, which is painting outside. We had the watercolors, we had people come back and say, oh, it's only gonna be for six weeks, we want it for the whole summer. Oh, are you guys coming back next summer? And then they disbanded the program. - Why? - Can you say, can you say, can you say? - At the Boston Foundation, I have no, they went in a different direction. It was to populate the parks after four o'clock so that the gang people and the bad guys would not be in the parks. 'Cause if the kids are there and the parents are there, they go elsewhere. - Mm-hmm. - And it was very successful in terms of their outcome. We didn't have many shootings or disagreements or anything, those two or three summers. And then the last summer, they didn't give us the grant, they gave it to the MIT Steam van, which came one time to mount a pan. When we had a program in all three parks with three or four different organizations programming three times a week. - Okay, so let me just interrupt you now. Because I want our listening audience to understand not the total frustration of what you're going through, but despite what you're going through, you're here to talk about what you're doing now. And we don't want to point the finger because the stomach's coming back at us. - So you're right. - So let's talk about what's coming up with your program. What are we gonna look for to enjoy? - So it's four days at the Strand, uptown brings it downtown, 'cause the Strand is it up on his corner, it's downtown from out of pan. - Downtown from Dudley. - Technically cross town, but yep. But yeah, it's coming down the hill on the first day, Wednesday, September 4th, we're having-- - Hold up, Win Win. Folks, get your pencils out on your pants because we want to make sure that you get this information and then we're gonna give Cassandra time to give us her information. So if you have any questions, you can get in touch with her if you wanna, okay? So go ahead. - So I'll start out with the email, which is stagingarts@gmail. S-T-A-G-I-N-G-S art-A-R-T at gmail.com. And we will respond with ticket sales, information, programmatic info. So the first day is the 4th of September. And from two to six, we're having our youth program, which will be dropping drama day. So we'll go from the page to the stage, give us some rudimentary training in elocution, improvisation, stage movement, et cetera, then we have the human rights ambassador Sean Bardu coming in at six for a reception on human rights and anti-slave trafficking and wage slavery. So we're gonna let the youth write about that because that awareness needs to happen because the missing children, missing girls, that's where they're going. And what are the signs to look for? And what does it look like to be trafficked? What does it look like to be lured into the trafficking? What does it look like to be a wage slave? So that will be the topic that we're writing on. Then as I said, the ambassador will be there to take pictures and sign pictures and talk about the issues, hand out some information. Then that'll be from six to eight after the youth program, which the youth will come back on Saturday, same time, two to six, rehearse, set the stage and do the show at four o'clock. - Let me just interrupt you again because I think it's very important that people understand that because of the station policy here that we're not able to talk about the prices of the tickets, they can get that when they call you, but we're not able to say what the tickets are in terms of course, okay? - All right, well, the Wednesday, they just, they come that first day or Wednesday, put the thing together. - Let me just put some emphasis on or if I could make a sound to what you're seeing here is that this is an opportunity for our community to see our youth that are doing things and like building themselves and building their community because it seems like our media here, they don't look or they don't report as much about these kinds of events. If somebody was to get hurt or something like that, they would right away, just blow that up. And so I'm really happy that you are here today, the kind of counter that information, you know, disbursement because we need to encourage our young people, we need to do that all the time. - Yes, we do. - And I wanna again, I just thank you for your tenacity and you know, I love you, I'm just crazy about her because she's one of my earlier encourages when they were over there on Blue Hill Avenue. And your daughter and her daughter were going to school over there learning how to dance. - That's correct. - That's been quite some time. Go ahead again. - So that will be on Wednesday and Friday, the drama drop in day and the performance on Saturday at four. Then after that workshop for the youth will have the meet and greet reception for Ambassador Sean and he'll talk on Wednesday. - On Wednesday? - This is Wednesday. - And then from there at from eight to 10 will be the artist opening meet and greet in the gallery at the Strand. And right now we already have Ife Franklin, we have Adrian Mobley, we have the Amarp artist getting some stuff together. - No piece. - Yup. And even Aquahomes is considering putting some pieces is a little challenging because the Open Studios is happening all like right around that, both in Roxbury and JP. So we'll have art up. They'll get to meet and greet with the visual artists, the performing artists that will be coming during the week. And I see Sanjiro's arriving, so he'll be able to talk about the hip hop extravaganza that will be on Wednesday and Thursday from the doors will open at seven and the shows will run at eight and go until 10 o'clock on Thursday and Friday. And then on Saturday, again, the drop in drama program, that the youth will present their work at four o'clock. And then at eight o'clock, we'll have a variety show, which will include a fashion show, fashion with a purpose because they use that to raise awareness on the trafficking and wage slavery. And some individual musical artists will have a magnificent drag performer, desire, who has been blowing up around the region and just recently came back from New York. Oh, I forgot to mention that at the receptions, the opening reception with the artists and the closing reception on Saturday night will have seasoned with soul, Ronda, percip serving some drinks and snacks, and we'll have a couple of people playing more A. Let me just give you a moment to collect yourself because you've been giving me not so much information that we want to make sure that we got it right. So we're going to take a little break right now. And we're going to come back because I have a couple of questions to ask you regarding how to put it all together. All right. Now, Oscar Machow Family Theater Program is a Boston nonprofit. They hope to teach the importance of community service through the art of theater, looking to establish a year-round community-based family theater organization with full theater productions by people from the community. For more information you can visit www.oskermachowrep.tripod.com. Back again, folks, but I just want to correct you on the website information for the Oscar Machow Family Theater Program Company, also known as the company. We are T-H-E-O-M-T-C.com. Oscar Machow Family Theater Program is a 30-year-old program here in Boston, community-based. We teach, we reach, we entertain. Theomtc.com welcomes you. Our guest again today is Cassandra Cato Lewis, a well-respected theater builder. There's been a community activist, educator, and a friend. My friend and your friend. Tell me about the idea of coming up with this mad opinion. Because I know that there's a lot of talent in the Haitian community and it's the dance group. Are they involved? Do you have a lot of Asians involved in your organization? Not currently. We've been on a hiatus trying to build the building. So we had to take time to do the infrastructure, build that team. We've had Paul Lucas donate his whole architectural firm to create the drawings and the visual concept of the center. And I have Karen Bunch as a project manager. And Milton Barros is also helping us with investments. So you have an infrastructure? We have infrastructure. So that's why we decided to do the arts festival. So that people would know, yeah, we're still around. We are working at making sure that art is viable and visible in Matapan. And we plan to build 35 artists live work studios above the art center and also to have-- Is that right? Yep, and also to have some working office spaces for our company. We've got to bring you back to talk about the particulars of this. But right now, you just here on WBCALP 102.9 FM Boston, we are the other page radio brought to you by Triad Veterans League. We are a veterans organization, a veterans volunteer organization. And we too are building in the community. And we welcome you because of the history that you have of just reaching out to people. I think that's commendable. But it's more than commendable. It's needed. It's needed. And to be knowing that you're working with Lovey Tavares, I mean-- Wow. Boy, oh, boy. I mean, look, you talking about getting something done? She's been super generous. Yeah, thank you. We love love for it. We love Lovey. We love her. And I don't know you on my show today. We sing all up, I love her. All the love and lovey. Yeah, and that will give you some, too. Yeah. Well, thank you. You come from a family of givers to be thank you for that. Thank you. No, yeah, we thank you. This is the other page radio. And I just want to take a moment to mention the importance of not forgetting our veterans and so saying. I just want to remind you that Triad Veterans League is very ambitious and advocating for our veterans and wants you to know that we talked a little while ago about the United States commemorative stamp proposal that we have in action gathering these signatures on a national level now to get the post office, the United States Post Office, to consider using the images from our annually published Black veterans calendar and to create a commemorative stamp series that will honor, educate, and empower our people around the contributions of military veterans from the American Revolution up until World War II. Of course, we're still ongoing with that history. And I just want to let you know that we are working now with Triad Veterans League is working now with the Office of Veterans Affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We're also working with the William Monroe Trotter Institute and the William Joiner Institute, both located at UMass Boston. And every more information coming through the emails and you may see a fly every now and then on Facebook. We're going to have to deal with a Facebook creation so that we can have more of a national driver. We want to thank United States Congressman Jim McGovern for coming up with the idea of creating commemorative stamp series. And we want to also thank the folks that are involved. That includes the United States Congressman Stephen Lynch, United States Senator, put us a name, Liz Warren. Liz Warren, yeah. And the other Senator. You mean, Liz, Miranda? No, no, we got to bring her in. Oh, yeah. We got to bring her in. We definitely got to bring her in. And Marquis aboard. Right. You know, we got him aboard and we got the president of the Boston City Council and a few others. But back to you, back to you and what you do. That's what we're here for. Tell us now, how do you define your position with the organization that you-- so probably speaking of here today. So I'm the creative-- currently the creative director of Matapan Cultural Arts Development and the artistic director of African Repertory Troupe, which is the parent company of Matapan Cultural Arts Development as well as African Repertory Connection. So African Rept, the two of them are nonprofit. So we are actively looking for supporters and donations. And you asked me about the interaction with the Haitian community. So for a couple of years, we did Toussaint L'Overture promenade through Matapan Square to all the businesses in under the open streets, open spaces, and had-- I'm sure you got a lot of talent there. Haitian art exhibit in the post office. And we brought Toussaint L'Overture to the parade, the Haitian day parade. And so now, after the first couple of years, they brought the folkloric dance from Haiti, and they are now promenading and presenting at the beginning of the parade. So the seas were planted, and they have now grown and expanded. They're growing now. So one of the things that people-- maybe they don't, and maybe they do-- understand is that one seed, once it's planted, it becomes an artery. You know, because they generate more seeds. That's right. We're planting-- if you plant that one seed, right. And your organization represents that. Thank you. You know, we appreciate you coming in today. We're certainly grateful to know that the aridness of theater absence is being, you know, fertilized by the work that you're doing. We really appreciate you coming in. But I got to tell you that we got to get you back here. So you're right. You know, we got to get you back here, because these are the kind of programs that we need to not only ascribe to be, but also that inspires to be. You know, these young people now have a place, and a space where they can use their talents. It doesn't necessarily have to be performing. It might have something to do with the technology that's involved with performing, because that's what the Oscar Michel family theater program is all about. It's about the technology. If we do an open audition, and you don't make the cut for the audition, we're not going to run you away. We're going to ask you to come back and learn about the technology, about how do you do a board? How do you do lighting? How do you do costuming? These are the kind of things that we do. And I want to just re-amp what I'm saying to you, because what you're doing is so important. It's so very important, because when you look and you see the facilities and spaces that are available to teach, they're not that many. They're not that many. Cassandra, you know what I'm talking about. Yes, I do. And people that are in control, they are not making themselves available to hear you. To hear you. You just said something, Mr. Fennell, you sure did. Yeah, you know, they ignore you until you let them notice. You're not the one. There you go. So I'm glad you brought up about the stagecraft, because that also is a part of the drop-in drama program. And the strand has agreed to let the children, the youth, and young adults shadow or observe closely the technical staff as they're putting, loading in for the show that they'll be doing. So, you know, there'll also be opportunities for people to do costuming and prop design and set design and things of that nature. Let's get your information back out there again, please. OK, it's stagingarts@gmail.com. S-T-A-G-I-N-G-A-R-T-S at gmail.com. The program is Uptown brings it downtown, a mini arts festival at the Strand Theatre in Oppo's Corner at Columbia Road. On September 4th, we'll have the artist opening and the ambassador's meeting greet on Wednesday-- that's Wednesday-- and the youth program in the afternoon. On Thursday, we'll have-- and Friday, we'll have the hip-hop extravaganza and San Jo's here to talk about that. We've got four days. We've got four days to work with that, right? And Saturday is the drop-in drama performance and the variety show with the fashion and drag star and all kinds of entertainment. Let me just-- And a closing reception. Let me just, you know-- Cassandra, this is the program for you, OK? And what I want to reiterate, the importance of what you and Lavi and your other associates and colleagues are doing in growing this project. Because I know that there's some more people out there that want to help you. I know they out there. And they might not know until today what you're coming here and talking about there. That's why you got to come back. Certainly well. We got to talk more about how you got to believe in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, how can you believe in others? Here is a lady by the name of Lavi Tabari's man. She always agrees to me with a smile. And she's concerned, as you are. That's right. But there are others. You've mentioned the tennis club and those other locations. And Boston rhythm riders, we're all here working to help the community become stronger and more healthy by expanding the horizons. We look forward to working with Julie asking me show a family theater program company. Certainly looks forward to working with you. Love to do a collaboration with you. Try Veterans League is our founding organization. Veterans are an overlooked and underused community resource. We're going to get busy with that. In the near future you'll be hearing from us. And we want to remind our audience about how we define ourselves so that we can refine ourselves. And that we are not to allow-- just let me just say this. We're not going to hate. We're just not going to wait. We will not allow so-called philanthropic organizations to just think that they're doing us a favor when they make their donations or when they keep their donations. Because if you're not believing in what you're doing, you're not going to get it done. We can't wait for you because our kids need-- our community needs you to understand that we're not here to play. We're here to stay. And we're here based on a history that is ever growing. So take us for what we are serious people. We have a lady here today, Cassandra. Cassandra is doing stuff not just in-- and not just in Mada Pan. She's doing stuff in the city of Boston. You'll see her, or you'll see her name, or you'll see her picture. And so we want you to know, Cassandra, that we appreciate what you're doing. Thank you. And I'm sorry you don't have a chance to let Sanjo come in and talk a little bit about the hip hop from the being to the apple on Wednesday and Boston Legends of hip hop. Those are going to be two dynamic shows with multiple artists of hip hop. So the next time that you-- The apple and from the region. Look, the next time you decide to do something do a little earlier and make people know-- Yes, sir. Will do. Because we don't like to rush nothing. No. We don't want to miss anything. All right. Because it's about the teaching and the reaching. So just give us a heads up as to when you're going to do this, or when you're going to do that. And we're going to make it happen. We're going to try to get across the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Awesome. Thank you. That's how we can work together. Yes, sir. You know, because nothing's perfect for God. Amen. And God is not looking for perfection. He's looking at efforts and correction. And so folks, saying that we got an open audition coming up real soon, they're also going to show family to the program. We're getting ready to go into the 24/25 performance season. And like Sandra was saying, we've got to come together to make it happen. It's not easy. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of frustration. But the outcome is going to happen-- There we go. --at the strand on Give us Another Day. September 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th. The fourth will be the youth program, the ambassadors meet and greet, and the artists meet and greet in the evening, Wednesday, the Boston legends, and Thursday the-- oh, gosh, I just lost it. We've got to show-- Thursday, we've got a lot going on, folks. Yes. We've got so much going on-- We've got the hip hop explosion. Yeah, we've got-- we've got so much going on. We're going to have to thank you for coming in today, Ms. Cassandra Lewis-Cato, and bringing that information. I'll get it out when I get it on my email. And God bless you. Break a leg. And thanks, folks, for allowing us to share the day with you. Thank you. And it's in your email now. Hey. Sit down. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)