The Inspired Word Presents PinkSpeak: Breast Cancer Journeys in Poetry & Prose – a breast cancer fundraiser in Manhattan, New York City. It will be hosted by actor/writer Jenny Saldaña and feature OBIE award winning playwright Susan Miller, singer/songwriter/actress Mimi Ferraro, actress Jodie Bentley, actress/poet Bridget Nason, singer/writer Khadijah Carter, actress/poet Gha’il Rhodes Benjamin, writer Pamela Beth Grossman, and poets Sarah Herrington, Robert Quote Rosa, Alicia Young, and Deborah Collage Grison.
Dedicated to the memory of Dorothy Geffner, mother of Inspired Word founder/producer Mike Geffner, and poet/author Pamilla DeLeon-Lewis, a beautiful and inspiring lady who performed in last year’s PinkSpeak and passed away on January 6, 2012.
The event will donate 100% of the proceeds to various breast cancer charity orgranizations.
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When: Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Where: 116 116 MacDougal Street (between Bleecker Street and Minetta Lane)
Downstairs Lounge Manhattan, NY 10012
(212) 254-9996
(917) 703-1512
By subway, take the A, B, C, D, E, F to West 4th Street-Washington Square.
Doors open @ 6:30pm Event starts @ 7pm
Minimum Donation: $15 (though you are certainly welcome to give more)
NO AGE LIMIT.
“The Inspired Word isn’t just a series, it’s a movement.”
FEATURE BIOS:
Susan Miller is an Executive Producer/writer of the award winning webseries Anyone But Me, now in its third season with over 11 million views worldwide. A Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting and two time Obie winner for My Left Breast and Nasty Rumors And Final Remarks, Miller also won the coveted Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play, A Map Of Doubt and Rescue. Her plays have been produced by The Public Theatre, Second Stage, The Mark Taper Forum, and Naked Angels, among others. A consulting producer/writer on The L Word and Thirtysomething, Miller has written feature screenplays for Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Fox, and was honored as one of Power Up’s “Amazing Gay Women In Show Business.” She is also the creator and writer of Bestsellers, a branded webseries. For her work on Anyone But Me, Miller (and creative partner, Tina Cesa Ward) won the 2011 Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media.
Mimi Ferraro is a singer/songwriter/actress/breast cancer survivor who has appeared off-Broadway (The Donkey Show) on film and television (Law & Order: SVU, As The World Turns), in commercials, and has fronted two NY-based rock bands, Audio Fiction and The Reformationists. Mimi performed all over North America in the Broadway National Tour of RENT, appearing as Maureen, Mimi and various ensemble members. An avid yoga practitioner, she teaches Vinyasa Yoga to women who have/had cancer at various locations in Brooklyn, including Bend & Bloom, and the Brooklyn Yoga Cooperative, of which she is a founding member. She co-teaches yoga for women who have/had cancer through The Libby Ross Foundation at Yoga Vida in Manhattan. She has recently been drafted into a third career as a health care consultant, activist and essayist. She was recently interviewed in the Wall Street Journal about the realities of post-cancer-treatment life: “The New Front in Breast Cancer: After Treatment Ends.” In addition, she has worked as an LGBT Outreach Consultant for SHARE. Mimi lives in Brooklyn with her two cats, drinks lots of green smoothies, and volunteers with the Young Survival Coalition and Urban Cat League. For more info, please visit http://mimiferraro.com/.
Jenny Saldaña is an actor, writer and most importantly a five-year breast cancer survivor. She has dedicated her life to helping women and families dealing with breast cancer especially those like her who were diagnosed under the age of 40. She will soon be featured in a major motion picture that she’s not allowed to name yet and will be producing and staring a web series written and directed by the wonderful Linda Nieves Powell. For more info, please check out http://jennysaldana.com/.
Jodie Bentley is an accomplished actor as well a a breast cancer survivor. She’s appeared Off-Broadway in CAPTAIN LOUIE (and the Original Cast Album), THE A TRAIN (RE) PLAYS, GIRL GANG; in regional theature in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (Annie Oakley), THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG (Sonia), SYLVIA (Sylvia), PRELUDE TO A KISS (Rita), and on TV in ONE LIFE TO LIVE (recurring), GUIDING LIGHT, AS THE WORLD TURNS, and a ton of commercials. She’s performed leading roles in workshops at the York Theatre, New World Stages, and The Workshop Theatre. She is also an NYU Tisch School of the Arts graduate, a co-owner of The Savvy Actor. http://thesavvyactor.com/, and a proud AEA Member. For more info check out http://www.jodiebentley.com/.
Bridget Nason is an actress, poet, and breast cancer survivor of five years. She has appeared on stage in Taming of the Shrew, The Importance of Being Earnest, On the Verge, Twelfth Night, Dancing on Checker’s Grave and Damn Yankees, among others. Feature film includes Shadows and Lies (starring James Franco), December Ends (written and directed by Lee Toland Krieger) and Beyond Life. On TV – All My Children (recurring); and in The Seagulls (pilot) written and directed by Wataru Kitano. Bridget is also a published poet. She studied acting at William Esper Studio and voice and speech with Shane Ann Younts.
Khadijah Carter, diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003 at the age of 28, is an inspirational singer, prolific writer, and spokesperson for breast cancer survivors. She has traveled nationally and internationally on behalf of the Young Survival Coalition to bring more awareness to the healthcare industry about young women with breast cancer. In 2007 and 2008, she was a model for the Avon Foundations print PSA Breast Cancer campaign, which was featured in The Oprah Magazine, People, Mademoiselle, Essence, and Elle. She is often asked by the media to share her testimony and has been profiled on The CBS Early Show, BET, The Montel Williams Show, and others. She released a CD: This Day: A Compilation of Inspirational Songs & Poems; proceeds benefit various non-profit organizations.
Sarah Herrington is an author, poet, and yogi living in New York City. She was recently celebrated by Oprah as a “Poet to Watch.” She has published a collected work of poetry, Always Moving, spanning 10 years of publication/readings/work/mentorship, and a book about teaching kids yoga, Om Schooled. Her poetry also appears in the anthology Bowery Women alongside writers Sapphire and Anne Waldman as well as dozens of online and print journals. Her short Young Adult-focused fiction is featured in Francesca Lia Block’s upcoming anthology, Love Magick and the anthology Just Like A Girl and she is completing a YA novel. Sarah is a grateful member of the Bowery Poetry Club community and has read at the Cornelia Street Cafe, Bluestockings Bookstore, and St. Marks Poetry Project. Sarah has worked for Gotham Writers’ Workshop and has taught and mentored teen girl writers in the NYC public school system through Girls Write Now. Sarah is a graduate of New York University’s English and Creative Writing programs and has been a passionate reader/writer all her life.
Gha’il Rhodes Benjamin is an award winning actor, poet/spoken word -recording artist via her own production company Talking Poems and Storytelling Productions. Gha’il performs her one-woman show with live musical accompaniment throughout the tri-state area and the country bringing to light the inner complexities of every day characters with raw simplicity and humor. From classrooms to college campuses, nightlife venues to Lincoln Center, The Schomberg, The Knitting Factory and Symphony Space of New York she motivates, uplifts and inspires audiences with words and phrases that stick to your ribs. Talking Poems specializes in creating personalized custom-made poetry (celebrating the greatness within) for every occasion, including weddings, anniversaries and memorial heirlooms for home-going celebrations. Also director and facilitator of various creative workshops and performances, she allows participants of all ages to “project their inner voices.” Gha’il is both the visual image and voice of spoken word in collaboration with filmmaker Al Santana in the WBGH Lab Series film titled Reparation Blues, PBS and WLIW. She is also the voice on radio airwaves with her poem titled She got burned, a PSA promoting domestic violence awareness through Safe Horizons of New York. Her debut CD Spiritual Eclipse/ Sacred Moments on a String of Words is a collage of music and spoken-word, a portrait of self-discovery, self-love and renewal…she is the recipient of the 2010 Soul Purpose Award and currently on the public speaking circuit, raising her voice to ignite “self-empowerment and creativity.” “She’s authentic, talented, mesmerizing and a breath of fresh air,” Les Brown, author and speaker, says of her. For more info, please visit http://www.ghailrhodesbenjamin.com/.
Alicia Young is a poet, pacifist, mortician, actress, musician, medicine woman, mother of twins, and reveler who hails from Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail. She has been featured in, as well as contributed to American Funeral Director and American Cemetery Magazines, and the Moronic Ox Literary & Cultural Journal, as well as the Montucky Review. She is the grandaughter of survival, a culmination of her foremother’s enduring will, women who fought, so that she may live.
Deborah Collage Grison
Robert Quote Rosa
Pamela Beth Grossman