West Oakland's Lower Bottom Playaz Needs Your Support

West Oakland's Biggest Secret: The Lower Bottom Playaz

Our Story

The Lower Bottom Playaz, founded by Dramatist/Poet, Ayodele “WordSlanger” Nzinga, MA, MFA, are an ensemble of professional and novice multi-disciplined performers; the troupe exclusively performs work of social relevance and places value in community on a personal and universal level. Lauded for their ability to render reality in art, the troupe has been the life behind the foot lights in the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater for 10 years, down in the heart of West Oakland at 10th and Peralta.

The Playaz motto is: “To make what we need from what we have been gifted.” Featured in the San Francisco 2008, 2009 and 2010 Theater Festival, and scheduled to perform in 2011, the troupe is a staple of Bay Area theater entertainment, that boast some of the finest talent in the Bay Area.According to Marvin X, "Ayodele Nzinga is simply the best actress in the Bay, not to mention her talents as poet, director and producer."

The troupe, commended by both Mayors Brown and Dellums, has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment of the Arts, Alameda County Arts Commission, Oakland Cultural Funding, Clorox Foundation, The East Bay Foundation, Theater Bay Area, and The Prescott Joseph Center For Community Enhancement.

"Community Theater at its most committed!--Ken Bullock-Berkley Planet

The Impact

We are raising funds to supplement our budget for production in 2011. We differ from many community theater troupes in that we pay performers. We realize the worth of the arts in community and the vital importance of having a space for established and emerging artists to practice their craft within community.

We offer art as an alternative form of expression thus attracting youth with talent but lacking opportunity. We provide opportunity to receive training free of charge and an art based income to our participants who in turn dedicate themselves to the service of their community through the creation of quality art.

We create work that illuminates quality of life issues and serve as a site of community engagement in these issues. In past we have produced work that has invited our community to consider cyclical violence, an expanded view of violence and poverty, the importance of conscious art, gendered roles, the industrial prison complex, gang involvement, HIV/AIDS, family relationships, gentrification and other hard hitting often neglected topics. We tell our stories the way we live them in the hope we can collectively find solutions and create the futures we desire and deserve.

Without this campaign it will be difficult to do the work we have before us for 2011. We will not be able to pay actors a fair wage, rent costumes, or market successfully without additional funding. This potentially means a dark theater. It will mean we cannot provide work for our actors. It means one less outlet for community. Sadly it leaves one less way for us to come together as a community to consider how to live better. Regretfully it forces us as artist to leave our community and create elsewhere because we have to eat. End result; less positive and uplifting art for us to consume. We all benefit from your contribution to this campaign.



What We Need & What You Get

We need money for actors, costumes, and marketing.

We also need in kind services. The free use of equipment, graphic services, use of props or costumes, reproduction services, filming, photography, make-up, and marketing assistance are all types of in kind donations we would be extremely grateful for. We would also gladly accept some other offer that you envision as helpful that we have not imagined here.

August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean will open on August 19, 2011 at 7:30 PM. We appreciate any size contribution. We encourage you to take advantage of the wonderful perks we have put together to make giving feel even better!