A Navajo girl explores her family’s past while struggling to keep her culture in a government-run boarding school in the one-woman show, “Native Vision,” coming to Cal State San Bernardino Thursday, Oct. 6, when Rachae Thomas performs.
The show is the opening event in the 2016-2017 schedule for CSUSB’s annual Conversations on Diversity series. The free noon-1:30 p.m. performance will be held in the CSUSB Santos Manuel Student Union Events Center. Parking at the university is $6 per vehicle.
Thomas’s most notable performances have been the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s pop musical, 'Evita;' Sarah in “Ragtime,” where she received rave reviews in the L.A. Times; and Aldonza in “Man of La Mancha.”
Her show, “Native Vision,” highlights the experiences of Native Americans in the 1930s and ‘40s. That’s when the young girl’s vision of becoming a modern healer in a changing world comes to life as her community joins the U.S. during World War II.
A Western Washington University graduate, Thomas received training in musical theatre, vocal performance, and artistic expression. She uses these as her mediums for social change. Now living in Los Angeles, Thomas has performed in showcases as well as various venues around Southern California. She has received honors for best classical acting at the Region VII-American College Theatre Festival.
The Conversations on Diversity series continues Jan. 26, 2017, at CSUSB’s Palm Desert Campus. There, Jonathon Higgins, named the National Black Justice Coalition‘s “100 Black Gay Emerging Leaders to Watch” and a graduate of CSUSB and the University of Redlands, will talk about “Adding a Little Bit More Color to Your Rainbow.”
Back at the CSUSB main campus on April 25, Edith Eger, found among a number of dead bodies at a death camp toward the end of WWII, tells her story of “Surviving the Holocaust.”
For more information about or accommodations at the Conversations on Diversity series, contact Twillea Evans-Carthen at (909) 537-5138, or Mary Texeira at (909) 537-5547. Also visit the Conversations on Diversity website at http://diversity.csusb.edu, and follow it on Facebook.com/CSUSBUDC, or email organizers at diversity@csusb.edu.
For more information about Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.
About CSUSB
California State University, San Bernardino is a preeminent center of intellectual and cultural activity in Inland Southern California. Opened in 1965 and set at the foothills of the beautiful San Bernardino Mountains, the university serves more than 20,000 students each year and graduates about 4,000 students annually. CSUSB reflects the dynamic diversity of the region and has the most diverse student population of any university in the Inland Empire, and it has the second highest African American and Hispanic enrollments of all public universities in California. Eighty percent of those who graduate are the first in their families to do so.