Emphatic testimony
By Laura Bailey
Tony Award-winning playwright and actor Sarah Jones (photo left) will give a free performance of her one-woman show, “A Right to Care,” 3:30-5 p.m. Thursday, March 31 at Rackham Auditorium, 915 E. Washington.
Jones, based in New York, premiered “A Right to Care” in 2005 at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s 75th Anniversary Conference. Jones and the Kellogg Foundation partnered to develop the show as a dramatic and compelling way to address ethnic, racial, and economic disparities in health care.
In the play, Jones plays several characters of different ethnic backgrounds. The play is set at a congressional hearing where a group consisting mainly of immigrants testifies about their experiences in the U.S. health care system, according to the The Triangle.org, the website of a student publication at Drexel University. “A Right to Care” has garnered critical acclaim, and has sold out off-Broadway and the Kennedy Center.
The daughter of two physicians, Jones approaches the issues in the piece from the standpoint that health care and public health are not only matters of equal access to high quality services for all, but of broader racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequities, according to her website.
Jones currently performs “A Right to Care” for organizations including universities, schools of public health, philanthropic foundations, grass roots community groups, and conferences around the United States. For a sample of Jones’ work, please view her performance for the Technology, Entertainment, Design group known as TED. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sucza6EOIf0
The performance is part of the 25th anniversary of the Summer Enrichment Program in Health Management and Policy. The celebratory symposium, called “Diversity and Inclusion: Transforming Health Organizations to Improve Community Health,” runs Thursday, March 31 and Friday, April 1. The performance is free but registration is required. http://www.sph.umich.edu/sep/diversity_inclusion/registration.html
To see the entire program: http://www.sph.umich.edu/diversity/resources.html
Laura Bailey is a senior public relations representative for the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
PHOTO CREDIT: Performance photo (above right) courtesy of W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
