uxconferences & events.
The Symposium on Equity in the Entertainment Industry and Awards is made possible
by a grant from Stanford University's Program in Writing and Rhetoric.
If you attended the 2015 Symposium, and/or wish to nominate someone you know for next year's Awards, please take a short 5 question survey here.
See you next year!
AWARDS.
This symposium's awards recognize otherwise unheralded contributions to equity in the entertainment industry. While those honored possess impressive lists of other, more publicly appreciated accomplishments, the courageous and critical actions for which they are awarded serve as inspiration, modeling for us all what we might also contribute.
HONOREES:
ADRIENNE ANDERSON
Adrienne Anderson is a published author (WORD: Rap, Politics & Feminism), entrepreneur, founder of the Futureshock Film Festival of Black Science Fiction, and founder and director of the International Black Women’s Film Festival (IBWFF). She established IBWFF in 2001 which explores the social, aesthetic, and political contexts of Black women in society through film, television, and other media. Adrienne debuted the first festival in 2002 in San Francisco, since then screening over 500 films from around the world. She has also served as the programmer for the San Francisco Public Library’s African Heritage Month Film Series and as a Judge for the University of San Francisco’s Student Film Competition. In 2015, Adrienne received an Innovators Award from the Hull Family Foundation and Oaklandish for using film to bring together diverse audiences and show- case quality, accessible programming that empowers women of color film- makers. Adrienne owns American Royal Tea, works for the Office of the CFO at the San Francisco Municipal Trans- portation Agency, and was featured in The Gentlewoman magazine in the U.K..
LINDA
CHUAN
Linda Chuan is an Actor, Executive Producer, and Senior Director of Global Corporate Services & Strategic Sourcing at salesforce.com. You may have seen Linda in national commercials, print, and industrials. Her on-screen break came with a speaking role opposite Joan Chen and Matt Dillon in MGM's Golden Gate followed by other roles, most notably one directed by Spike Lee in the Showtime pilot Sucker Free City. Linda is also an Actors' Equity Association member and serves as an Alternate Committee Member of the SAG-AFTRA National Asian Pacific American Media Committee.
ANNA MARIA LUERA
Anna Maria Luera has spent over 20 years as a youth worker and theatre artist. She is a teaching artist at Lighthouse Charter School and is a performing artist with the Love Balm For My SpiritChild Project, a testimony workshop series and performance for and about mothers who have lost children to systemic violence. Prior, she worked as the Senior Program Director at Oakland Kids First - a youth organizing and leadership organization - and as a program director at Streetside Stories in San Francisco where she facilitated youth workshops in writing and telling autobiographical stories. Anna has facilitated arts education workshops and worked with youth all over the Bay Area through San Jose Repertory's Red Ladder Program, Each One Reach One, and Word for Word. She is also a professional actress who has acted in many commercials and theatres including Intersection for the Arts' award winning theatre company Campo Santo. Anna is the mother of a beautiful little boy.
KEVIN
ROLSTON
Kevin Rolston is a San Francisco based actor and writer who has worked at ACT, CalShakes, Magic Theatre, Marin Theater Co, TheaterWorks, San Francisco Mime Troupe, and others. He was last seen at ACT as Charles Cooper in “8”, the marriage equality play. Kevin was the lead writer of THIS MANY PEOPLE, a play about the lives of LGBT senior citizens, which had its world premiere at Counterpulse as part of the Queer Arts Festival. He is currently developing his solo performance play DEAL WITH THE DRAGON (Best of the SF Fringe 2014) with the generous support of ACT. Kevin is also a Program Director and Performance Coach with the Stand & Deliver Group, helping leaders and their teams use voice and physicality to deepen their presence and influence. He began his teaching career working with Each One Reach One, a playwriting outreach project in the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center.
MICHAEL GENE SULLIVAN
As an actor and director, Michael’s work includes productions throughout the Bay Area, several national tours, and off-Broadway. He is also a member of the Tony and OBIE award-winning and never silent San Francisco Mime Troupe, with which he has acted in, directed, or written over 30 productions. For the past 15 years Michael has also been SFMT's Resident Playwright, each year creating a new comedy that dissects a current political issue. Michael’s non-Mime Troupe dramas, musicals, and satires have been performed at theaters throughout the United States, as well as at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the International Festival of Verbal Art (Berlin), The Hong Kong Arts Festival, and theaters in Greece, Spain, Columbia, Argentina, Canada, and Mexico. They include the all-woman farce Recipe, his one person show Did Anyone Ever Tell You-You Look Like Huey P. Newton?, his historical drama fugitive/slave/act, and his award-winning stage adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984, which opened at Los Angeles' Actors' Gang Theatre under the direction of Academy Award winning actor Tim Robbins. Michael's 1984 has since toured nationally and internationally and been translated into three languages.