East Bay Express reviews Oakland in Popular Memory

"It wasn't until college that Matt Werner began to truly understand the meaning of his hometown. He remembers it vividly: He was at UC Berkeley, chatting with someone at a party, when she asked where he was from. He told her Oakland, which was met with an 'Oakland? We don't go into Oakland.'" -Ellen Cushing

Read the full article "Oakland, in Its Own Words" by Ellen Cushing on the East Bay Express website.

Purchase Oakland in Popular Memory on Amazon.com, directly from Thought Publishing, or at these Bay Area independent book stores.

Popular posts from this blog

Throwback: My Off-Broadway debut!

Image
Agnus, a crime drama I co-wrote and co-produced, ran at Theatre Row at 42nd St & 9th Ave in Manhattan in January and February, 2018. My co-writer and co-producer, Ise Lyfe, played the title role of Agnus, an odd-looking man who is accused of a heinous crime. The show is set in a futuristic prison barge 30 years in the future, and it explores issues around the criminal justice system and technology. My pitch is that it's a crime drama like "A Few Good Men," but set in the future. Politically, the show was well-timed for the New York audience, in that Donald Trump had been in office less than a year, and he had already tried to establish a 'Muslim ban' and was detaining migrant children at the southern border for indefinite periods of time. Our show addressed these political hot-button issues such as racial profiling and unlawful detention, and we hosted a series of talkbacks and a residency in the space for nonprofits to use our theater for events on dark n...
Read more

Throwback: My NY debut in BARS Workshop Vol 2

Image
Back on September 5, 2016, I teamed up with a dozen highly-skilled actors, singers, dancers, and rappers to put on the #BARS Medley Vol. 2 at The Public Theater in New York City. This was my acting debut and New York City writing debut. The assignment was to take classic works of literature and rewrite them in modern verse, for a modern audience. The course was taught by Rafael Casal over several weeks the summer of 2016, and Daveed Diggs joined us for the final performance. I contributed writing to "Rapper in the Rye" introduced by Javier Muñoz from Hamilton, and also the finale piece titled "The Mediocre Gatsby." I acted in Lord of the Flies, Autobiography of Malcom X, and Great Gatsby. Here are some behind-the-scenes photos: Participants who made BARS Vol 2 possible include: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Pharoahe Monch, Javier Muñoz, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Anthony Ramos, Sarah Kay, Carven Lissaint, Carlos López Estrada, Jalene Goodwin...
Read more

Burning Man: The Musical is now a feature film!

Image
Burning Man: The Musical had its world premiere on Broadway On Demand and Streaming Musicals on August 27, 2021. Watch the film now . After working with the composer Gene Back for 6 years, we’re excited to announce that our satirical musical comedy has been turned into a feature film. It was shot on a soundstage with 10 actors during April, 2021. Watch the behind-the-scenes on the making of the film on YouTube . To learn more about the background on this project, read my interview with Oakland Magazine .
Read more