San Francisco Mime Troupe performs in Seattle at University of Washington on November 7, 1969.

  • By Priscilla Long
  • Posted 11/04/2001
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 1326
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On November 7, 1969, the San Francisco Mime Troupe performs in support of "liberating" the Raitt Hall "Commons" on the University of Washington campus. According to Seattle director (of Black Arts/West) Douglas Q. Barnett, "Their performance of The Minstrel Show was a scathing, satirical indictment of race relations and the military industrial complex."

The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a renowned experimental, political theater, which began in 1959 by presenting avant-garde performance events in lofts and basements. R. G. Davis was the founding director.

The troupe became a collective in 1970 and, in its own words, "...we have done melodramas, spy thrillers, musical comedies, epic histories, sitcoms, cartoon epics. Our trademark style draws from all these genres and is based on their common elements: strong story line, avowed point of view, larger-than-life characters, fantasy, live music"(San Francisco Mime Troup website).


Sources:

Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 276; San Francisco Mime Troupe website accessed November 1, 2001 (http://www.sfmt.org); HistoryLink.org Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, "Black Arts/West, Part 2 -- A History," (by Douglas Q. Barnett), http://www.historylink.org/ (accessed November 1, 2001).


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