We were tempted to characterize this month’s featured work as “ripped from the headlines,” but that wouldn’t have done justice to the complicated, searing stories by Devi Laskar and Fred D’Aguiar. The Atlas of Reds and Blues mines the author’s personal experience: Children of Paradise re-imagines the Jonestown horror. Don’t miss these readings!
Devi Laskar
author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues
Fred D’Aguiar
author of Children of Paradise
readings by Bridggett Bess and Angel Rodriguez
Friday, April 26, 2019 at the auditorium at CLARA
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
A $10 donation is suggested.
about our writers
Fred D’Aguiar
Inspired by the events at Jonestown, Children of Paradise is Fred D’Aguiar’s sixth novel. A poet, novelist and playwright whose work has been translated into a dozen languages, D’Aguiar’s first novel, The Longest Memory, won the Whitbread First Novel Award and was made into a film by Channel 4 (UK). A number of his essays have appeared in Harper’s, Wasafiri, Callaloo, Best American Essays, and elsewhere. His play A Jamaican Airman Foresees His Death was staged at the Royal Court Theatre. His BBC-commissioned radio plays Days and Nights in Bedlam and Mr. Reasonable were broadcast in 2005 and 2015 respectively. His sixth poetry collection, Continental Shelf (2009) was a UK Poetry Book Society Choice and was shortlisted for the UK’s T.S. Eliot Prize 2009. His most recent poetrycollection, Translations From Memory (Carcanet, UK) appeared in 2018. Born in London and brought up in Guyana, he teaches in the Department of English at UCLA .
Devi Laskar
In The Atlas of Reds and Blues, her first novel, Devi S. Laskar draws on her personal experience to create a “searing, powerful and beautiful” tale of what it means to be a woman of color in America. A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Devi holds an MFA from Columbia University. In addition to The Atlas of Reds and Blues, she has published two poetry chapbooks and her work has appeared in Tin House and Rattle, among other publications. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and is an alumna of The OpEd Project and VONA. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area
about our readers
Angel Rodriguez
Angel previously appeared at Stories on Stage Sacramento reading an excerpt from Tommy Orange’s There There, and we’re thrilled to have him back to read a selection from Fred D’Aguiar’s novel Children of Paradise. Angel is an actor and director from the Sacramento region. He holds a BA in Theatre from Sacramento State, is currently performing the lead rold in the CSUS production of In The Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda He has been in many other CSUS’s productions including “James and the Giant Peach” as James, “Darskide” as The Boy and “Gypsy” as Tulsa. He has also been in many Latinx projects through Teatro Espejo and Latino Center of Arts and Culture including the roles of Rene in “Lydia” and Juan in “La Pastorela de Sacramento.”
Bridggett Bess
We’re delighted to welcome Bridggett Bess to Stories on Stage Sacramento. She’ll be reading an excerpt from The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi Laskar. A singer, actor, and dancer, Bridggett’s career has taken her all over the world. Locally, you may have seen her in lead roles in Adoration of Dora at Kolt Run Creations and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Magic Circle in Roseville. She’s had supporting roles on the TV shows Rescue Me and Trauma, and has appeared in many independent films, including the starring role of “Dacia” in the PCS Film Festival film Three Words for Dacia, which won Best Film, Producers Choice, and Audience Favorite. Bridggett earned a BFA in Professional Theater Acting from North Carolina A&T State University. Among the many fun facts about Bridggett is that she’s also an award-winning belly dancer!
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
For ten years, Stories on Stage Sacramento has brought you the best in literature, read by actors, and this year we’re celebrating this big milestone by returning to our full, ten-event season.
We’re proud of our record, as an all-volunteer, donation-based organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season featured the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
in 2019, we welcome Tom Barbash, Karen E Bender (a National Book Award finalist) Sharma Shields, Janet Fitch, and exciting new writers Sarah Stone, Devi Lasker, Fred D’Aguiar, and Christine O’Brien. And we’ll welcome back the Los Rios Writers. More will be announced: watch this space!
Valerie Fioravanti, the founder of Stories on Stage Sacramento, is the author of the linked collection of Brooklyn stories Garbage Night at the Opera from BkMk Press, which won the Chandra Prize for Short Fiction. Her fiction has appeared in many literary journals, including North American Review, Cimarron Review, and Hunger Mountain. She has received eight Pushcart Prize nominations for her work and a Fulbright Fellowship to Italy.
A frequent reader at Stories on Stage Sacramento, Kelley Ogden is an actress, writer, director and producer, who was most recently seen onstage in the Capital Stage production of Sweat. In addition to working with Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, Main Street Theatre Works and Theater Galatea, Ogden co-founded KOLT Run Creations, a local fringe theater company. She earned a BFA in performance from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. She will read “The Cell Phones” 
Shelley Blanton-Stroud
This is Ian Hopps’ first appearance at Stories on Stage Sacramento but he’s a familiar face to Sacramento and Davis audiences: since his 2016 move to Sacramento from the Bay Area he’s appeared in leading roles with Capital Stage (Luna Gale, Stupid F***ing Bird,) the Sacramento Theatre Company (Macbeth, The Tempest) and Big Idea Theatre (The Rover, An Ideal Husband, The 39 Steps.) He’s the former associate producer and marketing director of the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble and has appeared in numerous productions there. He studied Theatre Arts at San Francisco State University, and in addition to acting, he writes for indie comics and podcasts, and produces his own music.
Jessica Laskey is very happy to be back at Stories on Stage! As an Equity actress, she has performed for Sacramento Theatre Co., Capital Stage, and California Stage and she’s the co-founding Artistic Director of Theater Galatea. Laskey is a freelance writer for Inside Publications, Sacramento Magazine, Sactown Magazine, Comstock’sand The Sacramento Bee and is the founding co-publisher of Indomita Press. She is also on the board of sister series Stories on Stage Davis.
Ruby Sketchley has performed locally at Sacramento Theatre Company, Capital Stage, Big Idea Theatre, KOLT, MSTW, and as an 1850’s tour guide in Old Sacramento. She’s a former company member of Big Idea Theatre and a former board member of the Capital Film Arts Alliance.
Lori is an alumni of the USC BFA program in Los Angeles. She has performed in Broadway touring companies of 42nd St. and Meet Me in St. Louis. Lori staged & choreographed New York premiers of Captains and Courage, The Unwritten Song and The Bus To Buenos Aires, and has staged and choreographed work for California Stage, Big Idea Theater and Capital Stage.. She has been a company member and resident choreographer with Sierra Repertory Theatre, performing in Lend Me A Tenor, Guys and Dolls, Comedy of Errors, A Streetcar Named Desire and most recently The Glass Menagerie and Vanya, Sonia, Masha & Spike. She appeared in Capital Stage’s productions of Superior Donuts and Good People, and in the Sacramento Theatre Company’s production of Mothers and Sons. Lori received an Elly award for best actress in Love Isadora with California Stage. She also teaches Movement for the Actor Workshops.
Actor and writer
have included Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Davis Shakespeare Festival, and roles in Man of La Mancha, The Donner Party, and The Tempest with the Sacramento Theatre Company. He’s a recent graduate in theatre and dance from Christopher Newport University in Virginia, and has trained at the Manhattan Film Institute and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
Bury What We Cannot Take is a story that eerily echoes today’s headlines: the tale of a family torn apart by the policies of a brutal government. Only it’s the 1950s, on mainland China, in the early days of the Maoist regime. Kirstin Chen‘s novel begins in a once-opulent villa on a tiny island in Southern China in 1957, with brother and sister Ah Liam and San San witnessing their grandmother taking a hammer to a portrait of Chairman Mao. When the authorities learn of this, the family must flee to Hong Kong, but when they attempt to get the necessary permits, they’re forced to leave one child behind as proof that they’ll return. Chen’s novel, partially based on the experiences of her own family, explores how we rationalize impossible decisions, persist in the aftermath of agonizing loss, and probe the limits of familial love.
grandmother. Incorporating each family member’s perspective was important to me because each of them is complicit in San San’s abandonment, and each must come to terms with the sacrifices he’s willing to make to reunite the family. The multiple perspectives allowed me to delve into each character’s guilt and sadness and rage, as well as into his innermost thoughts—the secret ways in which he justifies his actions in order to keep going.
