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NEVADA CITY, Calif. August 23, 2016 – Paul Emery and the Miners Foundry present the Tony Award winning San Francisco Mime Troupe in a special twilight performance, outdoors, at Pioneer Park in Nevada City on Friday, August 26, 2016.

Founded in 1959, the San Francisco Mime Troupe creates and produces socially relevant theater; their work is political satire and anything but silent. The San Francisco Mime Troupe does not do silent pantomime. They mean ‘mime’ in the ancient sense: to mimic. They talk, sing, and make a lot of noise. They are satirists; seeking to make you laugh at the absurdities of contemporary life and at the same time, see their causes. They perform everywhere from public parks to palaces of culture, aiming to reach the broadest possible audience.

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The troupe will open their 57th Season with “Schooled”, written by Michael Gene Sullivan and Eugenie Chan with music and lyrics by Ira Marlowe, and starring Velina Brown, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro, Rotimi Agbabiaka and Lisa Hori-Garcia.

Education.  It’s like the weather.  Everyone has an opinion but nobody does anything about it.  That’s how Lavinia Jones feels about her son Thomas’ new school, Eleanor Roosevelt High.  Decades of funding cuts have resulted in old textbooks, crumbling classrooms, and underpaid teachers, making Roosevelt exactly the sort of public school that has failed students time and time again.  Isn’t it time for something … efficient?  Efficient is exactly what Fredersen Babbit, from Learning Academy for Virtual Achievement (LAVA Corp.) promises to bring to the district.  New technology, remote learning, computer-generated teachers, LAVA promises to put the “virtual” in achievement!  But with kids learning from home, do we need all these empty schools?  And with privatization on the line, a Wall Street heavy hitter on one side, and a feisty octogenarian teacher on the other, suddenly the next School Board election is more about a hidden agenda than the open curriculum.

Are schools the last chance for democracy, or is education the next frontier for profit?  Can we trust a politician’s public/private plan to replace an out-of-date system, or is there something even more sinister than privatization going on behind the doors of LAVA?  And wait = when did the hall monitors start wearing brown shirts and armbands?  When it comes to the real plan for the future of education – and of our democracy – are we all about to get … Schooled?

Patrons are welcome to bring lawn chairs as well as outside food and nonalcoholic beverages to the show.  No glass may be brought into Pioneer Park.  No outside alcohol is allowed.  Alcohol may be purchased at the bar.  Coolers, picnic baskets, backpacks, and bags are subject to search.

What: Paul Emery and the Miners Foundry Present The San Francisco Mime Troupe ~ “Schooled”

When: Friday, August 26, Gates 6:30pm, Music 7:00 p.m. Show at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Pioneer Park, 421 Nimrod Street, Nevada City, CA

Tickets: $20.00, Tickets available online at www.minersfoundry.org or in person at the Miners Foundry and BriarPatch CoOp, or by phone (530) 265-5040