Join us online on Sunday, February 25th at 6pm PST for an engaging discussion with the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Company (SFBATCO) and the film team of Sign My Name to Freedom, shedding new light on the multifaceted and inconic former national park ranger Betty Reid Soskin.
This FREE event will include a 20-minute preview of Sign My Name to Freedom the film, and Q&A with film director Bryan Gibel and other members of the team.
Sign My Name to Freedom: The Unheard Songs of Betty Reid Soskin (The Musical)
SFBATCO will be performing a theater piece based upon the life, music, and writing of Betty Reid Soskin on March 29, 2024 to April 13, 2024 at Z Space, 450 Florida St, San Francisco.
In this World Premiere musical based on her life, acclaimed playwright Michael Gene Sullivan weaves Soskin’s original music in and out of dialogue between The Four Bettys - Little Betty, Married Betty, Revolutionary Betty, and Ranger Betty as they take us through a century of the Negro, Colored, Black, and African-American experiences of this amazing woman. Conceived by Jamie Zimmer, the production boasts choreography direction by laura elaine ellis, aerial choreography by Joanna Haigood, and direction by Elizabeth Carter.
Buy tickets to see the show here: https://www.sfbatco.org/smntf
Sign My Name to Freedom (A Documentary in Progress)
Director: Bryan Gibel, Co-Director: AK Sandhu
The film (a work in progress) will be a documentary hybrid, drawing on Betty's extensive photo, film & audio archive, footage shot with her over many years, and dramatic recreations with actors to depict pivotal moments in her life that were never documented. It centers on a secret Betty had kept for more than 50 years: her life as a singer-songwriter during the 1960s–70s, when she wrote autobiographical songs to process her experiences as the first Black family to move across the color line into Walnut Creek when it was racially segregated.
In addition to exploring lesser known aspects of Betty’s life, the project will also release an album of Betty’s unreleased songs to the world for the first time, and it takes viewers along with Betty on her journey to explore her lost music in her 90s by partnering with musicians from around the Bay Area.
The film team is currently hosting a crowdfund campaign, to raise the funds to complete the film. Betty is currently 102 and her dream is to watch the completed film. Help make that dream a reality by donating to the project today: www.seedandspark.com/fund/sign-my-name-to-freedom
You may also want to sign up for the newsletter for updates, or contact the film team directly at film@signmynametofreedom.com.