San Francisco, CA

A professional theater that actively seeks to educate youth from communities that have been historically under-represented in the theater industry.

Brava! for Women in the Arts/Brava Theater Center is a professional theater dedicated to redefining the American stage through a multicultural and feminist aesthetic.

Nuts and Bolts:

• Founded in 1986 in San Francisco's Mission District, BRAVA produces original works by leading national and local playwrights, including Suzan Lori-Parks, Cherylene Lee, Anne Galjour, Cherrie Moraga and Diana Son.
• BRAVA has pursued a two-pronged mission: giving voice to the unspoken realities of women's lives through the creation of new theater work and improving the quality of life in the Mission District by providing cultural, social and economic opportunities for its primarily Latino residents, particularly its youth.
• Brava! for Literacy works to cultivate theater skills in fourth, fifth, and sixth graders at three Mission District schools.
• The program was started in 2001 on the premise that the acquisition of theater skills enhances literacy development. It strives to "forge a strong partnership between teachers, artists, and parents to help at-risk children succeed in theaterand literacy."

• Over the past sixteen years, BRAVA has evolved from an all-volunteer organization into a nationally recognized theater company with a production history that includes more than 1,300 theatrical performances seen by 200,000 people
• BRAVA has renovated an old Mission District theater to serve as a venue for its programming, and it hopes that this facility will become an anchor for broad-based neighborhood revitalization.
• BRAVA has developed several programs through its education department that target the neighborhood's youth population. Two such programs are the San Francisco Running Crew and Brava! for Literacy.The San Francisco Running Crew was founded in the mid-1990s as a training program that would teach technical theater skills to youth from groups that were under-represented in the technical theater professions, particularly young women, youth of color, and youth from low income households.
• The programs boost college acceptance rates based in part on the technical theater skills that participants develop.
• Because the San Francisco Running Crew program offers job placement for its graduates and because theater work provides great part-time employment for high school and college students, the alums tend to stay in touch with the program.
• The program prepares its participants for better jobs in any field because it trains them in universal skills such as responsibility, reliability, professionalism and punctuality.

For more information on this program: BRAVA! for Women in the Arts