Performance ‘edutainment’ troupe Authentic Voices brings real life experiences to Sacramento

Authentic Voices is a Sacramento-area theater troupe that relates real life experiences about social justice as a series of one-minute vignettes. Topics include homophobia, racism and domestic abuse.  No lectures. No judgment. Just their stories.

CapRadio Morning Edition Host Donna Apidone spoke with with three members of the troupe about their origin and the care they put into every performance.

Interview Highlights

On the origin of Authentic Voices

Rev Georgia Prescott: I’ve done readers’ theater around women in alcoholism and around lesbianism in the Bay Area. So when I got here, and I saw how much people wanted to know each other, but didn’t know how, had no idea how to start those conversations, I thought, you know what? We need to do a reader’s theater around inclusivity and diversity. 

And it’s also to start conversations in a fun and gentle way. I think what happens so often is that we separate, we get polarized, we have these ideas of who one another is that are totally false. So by sharing these stories – and they are our stories, they are not something we read in a book or watched on television, they are things that we actually lived through, and I think that helps the audience say, Oh, I see how much they love each other, I can see that on stage. I guess maybe I could work a little closer toward that.

On compassion within the performance troupe

Tim Garcia: When I had the first meeting a year ago, one of the stories that was shared was about abuse, and so it was a little triggering for me. But at the same time, I was able to empathize with that person in a way that I didn’t know.

I had known this person for a long time, but I had no idea that they had had this experience. And so through that conversation, I felt like I got some healing for experiences I had in my life – and that was before we even went to the stage  -- because they are so powerful, each one of these, whether they bring up tears or laughter. They’re just authentic and real.

On respect for players and audience

Ayanna Kiburi: We have had conversations where some of the members have just said, you know, I can’t. We can keep that in, but I can’t do that line. Somebody else is going to have to do it. I just can’t do it, and so we adjust. Because our stories, gratefully, are not connected individually to us when we’re performing. I might be a different gender than I am. I might be a different age than I am. And different color. So we rotate these stories, and we do that on purpose to try to just break down those preconceptions and put the fact that there’s variety and diversity in the world, right? So we’re going to provide that. We’re going to help you by trying not to have you be so attached to what you think I am when you see me.