Poetry Reading and Open Mic Celebrate Diversity in Front Royal

Front Royal, VA — To celebrate National Poetry Month, Selah Theatre will host Sharing Our Truths: Voices of Diversity, an evening of poetry and stories on Saturday, April 1 at 7:00 PM.

The reading is a chance for community members to come together and share their perspectives on how we can be more united as a nation while celebrating our diversity and our long tradition of free speech. The event will feature three area writers—José Padua, LaTasha Do’Zia-Earley, and Edward Zahniser—and will be followed by an open mic. Readers are invited to share poems, stories, and songs about their experiences as Americans and their hopes for the future. Members of marginalized and minority communities are especially encouraged to participate. Says Selah Theatre founder La Tasha Do’zia-Early, “This is a chance for community members to share their personal stories and speak out in support of diversity, free expression, and other core American values that hold us together.” The event will be a “safe space” and will honor the values of inclusion, participation, and compassion for everyone regardless of race, class, religion, country of origin, immigration status, (dis)ability, age, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

Featured readers:

José Padua has published poetry and fiction in Bomb, Salon.com, Exquisite Corpse, Another Chicago Magazine, Up is Up, but So Is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992, and many other journals and anthologies. His personal essays, features, and reviews have also appeared in Salon.com, Vox Populi: A Public Sphere for Politics and Poetry, The Weeklings.com, The Good Men Project, Sensitive Skin Magazine, Gargoyle, the NYPress, the Washington City Paper, the Brooklyn Rail, and the New York Times. He’s read his work at the Lollapalooza Festival, CBGBs, the Knitting Factory, the Nuyorican Poets’ Café, the Black Cat Club, and many other venues. In 2014, he won the New Guard’s Knightville Poetry Prize for my poem “Seven and Seven Is.”

La Tasha Do’zia-Earley is the Founding Artistic Director of Selah Theatre Project in Front Royal teaching and reaching over 650 young actors in many venues throughout the Winchester area. She has served as a preschool director, a Big Sister and foster parent. La Tasha is not a stranger to the stage. She is an accomplished performer with credits in both Regional and Community Theatre, including the Other Voices Theatre, Theatre of Shenandoah, Sandler Performing Arts Center, the Apollo Civic Theater, Winchester Little Theater, Ohrstrom-Bryant Theater and The Kennedy Center . She has been seen in productions such as Avenue Q (Gary Coleman), The Miracle Worker (Viney), Chicago (Mama Matron Morton), Hairspray (Motormouth), Necessary Targets (J.S. Bach) and From Prison to Stage. Her directoral credits include Laramie Project, Vagina Monologues, The Colored Museum, Annie Jr., School House Rock, Jr., Around the World in Eight Plays, A Seussariffic Christmas Carol and Steel Magnolias.

Ed Zahniser lives in Shepherdstown, WV. His poetry appears in five chapbooks, 10 anthologies, and five books, including Mall-hopping with the Great I AM (Somondoco Press, 2006) and At the End of the Self-help Rope (Scarith Press, 2016). He has edited poetry for Wilderness, Artz & Kulchur of the Mountain State, Antietam Review, and the Good News Paper, which he co-founded in 1979. He has recorded for “The Poet and the Poem” Library of Congress archive and is listed in Poets & Writers Directory as a poet and fiction writer. He edited and wrote many prose books on national parks, wilderness, and U.S. conservation history. He was formerly senior editor and writer for the National Park Service Publications Group.

About Selah Theatre:

Location: Selah Theatre is located at 30 E. 8th Street, Front Royal, VA (http://www.selahtheatreproject.org). A reception with food and drink will follow the event. For more information, please email hdavis67@gmail.com.

The mission of Selah Theatre Project is to empower, educate, and enlighten our community with theatrical opportunities that encourage conversations and have a positive impact. Each year, Selah reaches more than 650 children and families through main stage productions, arts education, and youth development programs. Selah Theatre Project produces original theatre productions and provides theatrical training and youth development through the Selah Youth Theatre Ensemble, in-school residencies, and after-school programs.