News & Events
Raising Our Consciousness
First-time playwright and Washington, D.C., resident Anu Yadav performed for a community gathering in the Simon Theatre Friday, February 22.
Yadav is a recent recipient of the D.C. Mayoral Arts Award for her smartly written play Capers, which is based on the housing struggle of friends and residents of the Arthur Capper public housing project. In the magnetic one-woman play, which she performed later that evening in the Hale Studio Theatre, Yadav plays 12 characters.
The play brings to life the real stories of the families at the public housing projects as they protested the government-funded relocation and demolition of their neighborhood.
Yadav, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, got involved in the residents’ plight after completing a fellowship that took her to Germany, Brazil, and South Africa to observe street and political theatre. It was then that she realized the potential efficacy of theatre for the sake of social change.
“The most important thing that happened [as a result of Capers] is that a group of people recognized themselves as leaders and were able to realize they were experts in their own situation,” Yadav said. “They took steps to make a change.”
First-time playwright and Washington, D.C., resident Anu Yadav performed for a community gathering in the Simon Theatre Friday, February 22.
Yadav is a recent recipient of the D.C. Mayoral Arts Award for her smartly written play Capers, which is based on the housing struggle of friends and residents of the Arthur Capper public housing project. In the magnetic one-woman play, which she performed later that evening in the Hale Studio Theatre, Yadav plays 12 characters.
The play brings to life the real stories of the families at the public housing projects as they protested the government-funded relocation and demolition of their neighborhood.
Yadav, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, got involved in the residents’ plight after completing a fellowship that took her to Germany, Brazil, and South Africa to observe street and political theatre. It was then that she realized the potential efficacy of theatre for the sake of social change.
“The most important thing that happened [as a result of Capers] is that a group of people recognized themselves as leaders and were able to realize they were experts in their own situation,” Yadav said. “They took steps to make a change.”
