Laborfest: A Christmas Carol & Harry Bridges Birthday Party

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
(A Staged Reading to Benefit The Actors’ Fund)
The SAG-AFTRA San Francisco-Northern California Local presents the premiere reading of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens as adapted and directed by Michael Gene Sullivan, with musical direction by Joshua Raoul Brody.

This rousing, worker-oriented version of the time-honored Christmas story features classic songs from the labor movement but is re-imagined by Sullivan for the troubled, 21st Century. Dickens’ themes of labor unrest, joblessness and starvation are now set in an abandoned Occupy encampment, and told from the point of view of the worker, Bob Cratchit, whose beleaguered family lives in a chilly tent alongside a band of Occupy activists and artists. They survive by telling anyone who will listen this classic story of oppression and hope, as they all fall further into the abyss between rich and poor. Will anyone listen?

The staged reading will feature professional union actors—all members of SAG-AFTRA—and will benefit the Actors’ Fund, a nationwide human services organization for professionals in the performing arts.

July 28th is Harry Bridges birthday and SAG-AFTRA, with the Bridges family, invites you to join them after the reading for cake, champagne and music to celebrate Harry’s 113th birthday! Harry Bridges was a founding leader of the longshore union, now known as the ILWU. This Laborfest is a commemoration of the 1934 general strike made possible by the longshore and maritime workers, that brought us, in 1935, Social Security, unemployment insurance and the right to organize labor unions.

For more information, call Lauren Renaud, SAG-AFTRA: 408-337-2705
See also:
http://www.laborfest.net/2014/2014schedule.htm