Doris Baizley
Writing
Biography
Doris Baizley (playwright) was born in Portland Maine, raised in Philadelphia, and lives in Los Angeles where she teaches at Loyola Marymount University. She is a founding member of LA Theaterworks (originally Artists in Prison). She was resident playwright at the Mark Taper Forum’s company for young audiences and dramaturg for its Other Voices Program for theater artists with disabilities. Her plays have been developed and produced at the Mark Taper Forum, ACT Seattle, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, History Theater, The Salt Lake Acting Company and internationally at the Semafor Theater in Prague and the Icon Theater in Taipei. Her most recent work is community-based theater and documentary story editing.
Known For
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Cameraperson
A struggling Asian American Theater company decides to put on a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado.
The Mikado Project
Borders have defined Sansón’s life. There’s the physical and psychological border between Mexico and the US. And now, looking at a life behind bars, there’s the one that separates him from his loved ones. Since it is forbidden to film inside the jail, Reyes recreates Sansón’s life – with the help of his family – through letters and by casting an untrained actor to play his friend. The resulting film is a reflection on migration, the notion of family, what it means to see one’s life on film, and the harshness and injustice of the US prison system.
Sansón and Me
Artist Emile Norman is the subject of this compelling documentary profile, which chronicles the 88-year-old's personal life as an "out" gay man long before it was the norm, as well as his lifelong dedication to his art. Norman, whose mixed-media works include the grand marble relief and ornate mosaic window of San Francisco's Masonic Auditorium, found success in New York but retreated to Big Sur, Calif., where he founded an artists' haven.