Amherst Together presents
One Drop of LoveAmherst Regional Middle School Auditorium
Admission is free and open to the public
Please see attached press release and promo flyer.
AMHERST– Amherst Together presents One Drop of Love on Wednesday, April 15, at 7:00 p.m. at the Amherst Regional Middle School Auditorium.Produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, this extraordinary one-woman show by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni incorporates filmed images, photographs and animation to tell the story of how the notion of race came to be in the United States and how it affected her relationship with her father. To tell her story, DiGiovanni travels back in time to the first US census in 1790, to cities across the United States, and to West and East Africa, where both father and daughter spent time in search of their racial roots.
An award-winning actor, producer and educator, Cox DiGiovanni has been featured in the New York Times and on NPR as a spokesperson on using the arts to explore racial identity. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cape Verde, West Africa, and has designed curricula for and taught English as a Second Language to students from all over the world. She has been honored with the Peace Corps’ Franklin H. Williams Award and with Peace Corps Fellows and Hollywood Foreign Press Association scholarships. She holds a bachelor of arts in Spanish and education, a master of arts in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and a master of fine arts in television, film and theater. DiGiovanni developed “One Drop of Love” as the thesis project for her Master of Fine Arts degree in film, television, and theater from California State University Los Angeles. DiGiovanni, who appeared in the Academy Award-winning film “Argo,” is also the co-creator, co-producer, and co-host of the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat, and co-founder and co-producer of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival.
“There are many different kinds of conversations occurring in our community regarding identity,” says Carol Ross. “Not everything is black or white, literally and figuratively. What Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni brings to the table is a moving and insightful microscope to our belief that there is such a thing as race and how the assignment of identity plays out in destructive ways that impact each and every one of us. This is a critical component that often gets missed in our attempts to dismantle this social construct.”
About Amherst Together
Amherst Together is a creativity hub for advancing community, collaboration, equity and inclusion in Amherst. Through collective impact, Amherst Together will continue to evolve as an organizing infrastructure for effective community engagement, connecting people, ideas, and resources for building sustainable progress in everyday social practices.For more information, please visit amhersttogether.org.
Follow Amherst Together on Instagram at instagram.com/amhersttogetheror on Twitter at twitter.com/amhersttogether.
AMHERST TOGETHER | 170 Chestnut Street | Amherst, MA 01002 | 413.362.1820
Media contact: Carol Ross, rossc@amhersttogether.org, 413.362.1820
