2014: Ripple Effect

Written by Michael Gene Sullivan, Eugenie Chan & Tanya Shaffer
Music & Lyrics by Ira Marlowe
Directed by Wilma Bonet and Hugo E Carbajal

Ripple Effect featured Mime Troupe Collective Members Velina Brown, Lisa Hori-Garcia, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro and Michael Gene Sullivan.

And band members Michael Bello, Peter Penhallow and Mick Berry


View original playbill

View the full company's bios

View show photos

View YouTube Trailer

Song Clip: This Is Too Much
    Lead singer: Lisa Hori-Garcia
    Back up: Michael Gene Sullivan,
                      Velina Brown
Song Clip: We're Almost There
    Lead singer: Velina Brown
    Back-up: Michael Gene Sullivan,
                      Lisa Hori-Garcia,
                      Keiko Shimesato Carreiro

Learn more about the subject matter for this year's show!
Community Forums held during 2014
Poster
Photographer: DavidAllenStudio.com
Poster Design: Nina Grosser




Skyrocketing rents. Loss of diversity. Certain workers welcomed like saviors, while other workers are discarded like trash. The War on the Poor. And San Francisco - the capital of the Revolution - becoming the center of corporate surveillance technology.

What is The City coming to?

Veteran of the Revolution Deborah Johnson thinks she knows. So does immigrant-turned-super patriot Sunny Nguyen. And so does Silicon Valley's newest star, small-town transplant Jeanine Adenauer. And each has reason to despise the other. So how do they end up together in a tour boat in the middle of San Francisco Bay? Each one has a story to tell; a broken dream that brought them to this moment, and a past that divides them from the others. But can the old commie, the tech newbie, and the flag-waving beautician find common ground ashore, or will they all sink under the waves?

Who - or what - is S.U.S.I.? And can anyone stop... The Octopus?


Production Photo
Photographer: Fletcher Oakes
- Greetings from Octopus Tech -
(l-r) Michael Gene Sullivan (The Octopus), Lisa Hori-Garcia (Jeanine Adenauer) in
Ripple Effect.

Honors, Reviews and Articles:

"Brightly written, laugh-laden... one of the most enjoyable Mime Troupe outings in recent memory."
SFGate - 7/6/14

"MIME TROUPE NAILS IT!... a rousing success that perfectly captured the city's current zeitgeist and growing pains... Brava!"
SF Bay Guardian - 7/9/14-7/15/14

"But most of all, it drives home the point that to accept the status quo is as much a political stance as to fight against it. As Deborah says, 'There is no such thing as not political.'"
Marin IJ - 7/16/14



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