Featuring Aldo Billingslea

Thursday, June 18th on Beyond the Boards, San Jose Stage Artistic Director - Randall King sits down with Aldo Billingslea, founder of The Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project, to discuss the upcoming reading of Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids by Vincent Terrell Durham. On Friday, Juneteenth, (June 19th), San Jose Stage will join The Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project, Playground SF and theater communities around the country to provide our response to the current moment – the civil uprising that has come as a reaction to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others before them.

About the Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project

The Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project was launched by Aldo Billingslea to center Black theatre artists and new voices, address systemic racism in the theatre industry, and help raise much-needed funds in support of Black Theatres around the country (click here for information or to donate to the GoFundMe campaign).

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About Aldo Billingslea

Aldo Billingslea is a professor of Theater at Santa Clara University where he teaches courses in performance and performance studies, including seminars on August Wilson and American Theater from the Black Perspective. Aldo became SCU’s inaugural Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and served as the Vice President of the 100 Black Men of Silicon Valley. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Renegade Theater Experiment, and on the advisory board of Gritty City Youth Repertory Theater and on the Board of Regents for Archbishop Mitty High School.

A member of Actor's Equity Association and the Screen Actor's Guild, Billingslea has appeared in productions of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running and Radio Golf; Eugene Oneill's The Hairy Ape and Anna Christie; Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman; August Strindberg's Miss Julie; Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and more than two dozen different plays by William Shakespeare.

Billingslea has worked in the San Francisco Bay Area at the American Conservatory Theatre, Aurora Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre, Cuttingball Theatre, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Shakespeare Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, TheatreWorks, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He has also worked at Portland Center Stage, Portland Repertory Theatre, Tacoma Actor's Guild, Sacramento Theatre Company, Plano Repertory Theatre, Theatre Three in Dallas, San Antonio's Majestic Theatre, InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia, San Diego's Old Globe Theater, and Shakespearean Festivals of California, Dallas, Marin, Oregon, and Utah.