In January of 1993 Lewis Campbell,  an acting teacher from School of the Arts in San Francisco, got a call from  former student and professional actor Johanna Jackson. Would he work with some of  her students while she was playing the role of Calpurnia in To Kill a Mockingbird at Denver Repertory Theatre?  He agreed and two months later a group of fourteen young actors presented an evening of one-act  plays at The Next Stage in San Francisco.  One of the actors in the March production was Ronnie Hatter, Arts Coordinator at the Potrero Hill  Neighborhood House.  Ronnie suggested starting a new theater company on The Hill, and Multi Ethnic Theater was born.  In June, Lewis took early retirement from teaching to become MET's full-time Artistic Director.

A July 1993 program note contained the following message:

"We have MET on The Hill."   Multi-Ethnic Theater is a true people's theater. Tickets are sold on a sliding scale beginning at $2.00.  We rehearse mostly on weekends, and everyone is invited to participate. Classes and production activities will  begin again in the fall.

For the summer and fall of 1993  MET concentrated on training and the presentation of scenes and one-act plays.  Then, in November, MET presented its first full length production, a handsome  and delightful staging of Moliere's  Scapino.

MET continued at the Neighborhood House, training and producing plays, through 1996.  In 1997 the company moved its training operations downtown and began producing at The Next Stage in alliance with the founder of that company, Marcia Kimmell.  In 1998 Ms. Kimmell and  Lewis Campbell founded a California non-profit corporation, Theater Residencies  Incorporated, with MET as one of its projects.  Currently, Multi Ethnic Theater presents two or three productions  a year at The Next Stage.

A SECRET FOR NEXT SUNDAY
World Premiere by Charles Johnson

Jack Foley,  KPFA-FM
Charles Johnson’s A Secret for Next Sunday is a vital, at times brutal glimpse into the intricacies of family life. The play keeps close to the real, so that “theatrical” or melodramatic plot lines which might have been developed  -- aren’t: things that happen, the way they do in life.  Someone dies, but there is no “reason” for it other than the fact that people die.  It is the least judgmental of plays, but one of the truest: a look at suffering which insists on nothing but the inexorable fact that life exists. Lewis Campbell’s direction and an excellent cast keep the play as convincing as the argument your next-door neighbors have every Tuesday. A Secret for Next Sunday should not be kept secret.                                                                                                 
Wanda Sabir,  San Francisco Bay View
Playwright Charles Johnson is interested in race as a theme in his work.  His new play, A Secret for Next Sunday, is certainly that.   Set in Chicago during a time when youth were unaware of the racial strife that brought many African Americans to northern cities,  the lead character Jim decides to address this disrespect after a drug lord takes his parking space one time too many.  There are parallel stories being told: one set in Alabama, the other in Chicago.   Two couples Jim and Mattie and Bessie and McCoy have known each other from childhood. The men came north together where they met their future wives, whom they thought were northern girls.   What I like most about the play is the relationship between the two men and the women, not to mention the couples. McCoy really loves his friend, and accepts him, faults and all.  Pay attention to the Emmit Till reflections,.  They foreshadow the scenes on the other side of the stage, the scenes in which Jim replays in his mind repeatedly over the course of the evening. He can’t change what he did, but he certainly can learn from it.                                                  

WHEN YOU COMIN’ BACK, RED RYDER
by Mark Medoff

Robert Avila -- San Francisco Bay Guardian

A frightening but witty sociopath (Mark Williams) takes five people hostage at an out-of-the-way New Mexico diner in Multi Ethnic Theater's production of Mark Medoff's darkly amusing 1973 play. Suggesting the '60s generation as betrayed by the Vietnam era, Teddy and girlfriend Cheryl (Lily Tung) plan to rob an affluent couple (Kara Hughes and Gary Pettinger) who've stopped in for breakfast, but Teddy finds himself irresistibly drawn to tormenting the small, empty lives of the regulars: gas station attendant Lyle (Omar M'Sai), misfit waitress Angel (AJ Davenport), and especially the pretentious grave-shift cook Stephen "Red" Ryder (Eric Johnson), whose nickname and outmoded '50s mien speak loudly to Teddy (with a mixture of fury and fascination) of the mythic sham of the American West. In turn, Teddy forces confessions and actions from his captives that will change them irrevocably. Lewis Campbell directs brave performances that, together with a well-appointed set design, do fitful justice to a play both very much of its time and worth a second look. Johnson and Williams have a tendency to overplay their admittedly supersized roles, but they and the rest of the cast find a solid groove by the second act, when a dramatic climax and Medoff's theme of hollow American nostalgia come together with winning ferocity.

Chloe Veltman – SF Weekly

When Teddy, a brain-shot Vietnam veteran, and his spacey girlfriend, Cheryl, barge into a roadside diner in southern New Mexico one Sunday morning demanding more than plates of steak and eggs and a little light conversation from the terrified brunchers, personalities collide and change forever. Mixing hippie drug-runners with straight-laced out-of-towners and local workers, Mark Medoff's 1973 play When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder explodes the flower child idyll of "love and peace" while tearing down the myth of the Old American West. Multi Ethnic Theater's production goes deep into the dramatic core of the piece, creating a brooding atmosphere of isolation, disaffected youth, and tumbleweed living. The actors depict Medoff's demandingly diverse characters bravely, but the wildly differing dynamics of their performances create unevenness. With the biggest roles, Eric Johnson (playing the petulant graveyard-shift diner grunt Stephen "Red" Ryder) and Mark Williams (Teddy) overdo it at times. Conversely, Lily Tung (Cheryl) and Dawn Scott (Clarisse, a yuppie violinist on her way to a recital) disappear from view to such an extent that their occasional outbursts seem unwarranted. But A.J. Davenport -- as the sweetly acerbic waitress, Angel, shuffling about director-designer Lewis Campbell's evocative set with her piles of napkins and coffee mugs -- creates a perfect balance between understated melancholy and outspoken sass.

Jack Foley –  KPFA Radio

I saw some genuine theatrical magic last night at Multi Ethnic Theater’s production of Mark Medoff’s 1974 play, When You Comin Back, Red Ryder?. At the very end of the play, Angel, a woman described in Medoff’s script as “obese” and played last night by A.J. Davenport  is alone on the stage, the only inhabitant left in the dreary cafe in which she works. Much has happened throughout the play, and the stage has been filled with people, but now there is no one except her. Red Ryder, the only man she has ever loved, and whom she hoped might have feelings for her, has left to make his fortune elsewhere. One feels that he might well be back, that his fortune-making scheme will turn out to be a disaster, but for the moment he has certainly abandoned Angel. In any case, she now understands that he does not return her love and that, even if he comes back, he will never return her love. Angel sits at the counter of the cafe. She picks up Red’s half-eaten doughnut and begins to eat it. There is no sound: no dialogue, no music. Just a fat girl who now knows that she will never be loved and for whom sweets (even half-eaten ones) may be the best substitute she can find for a lover. She says nothing; she just sits there for a moment and eats. It is utterly magical. All of the loneliness of the world seems to gather at that moment and be present at this down-and-out, battered, loser’s cafe. Ms. Davenport is simply wonderful. There is no one but us to love her and we do.

 Deborah Peiffer,  SF Weekly:
            MET's deliberate choice to work for multi-ethnicity represents real courage and it gives hope for the future.      Read the complete article.

Robert Avila,  S.F Bay Guardian - Night and Day
Multi Ethnic Theater presents two one-acts by renowned South African playwright Athol Fugard. In the first, The Island,  two inmates of the notorious Robben Island prison camp (Myers Clark and Stewart) rehearse a performance of Antigone, which is the continuation of their struggle by other means.   Next, in Sizwe Bansi is Dead, a timely twist on the perils of the identity card, we meet Styles (Vernon Medearis), an affable portrait photographer proudly recording the dreams of his people, including today's customer, a desperate migrant worker (David Stewart) befriended by a savvy local (Fred Pitts).  Both plays grew out of improvisations with Fugard's actor-collaborators John Kani and Winston Ntshona in Capetown in the early 1970s – when the reality of apartheid was such that the script for Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, the story goes, could not be written down (lest it end up in a South African court as evidence of subversion) – and director Lewis Campbell's capable cast achieves solid results in these demanding roles. While echoing the plight of migrants and colonized the world over, these luminous sketches contain a surprising amount of humor and joy, bringing home the horror of an unjust system precisely by being consummately human portraits.

Doug Konecky,  America On Line - Entertainment
Multi Ethnic Theater is a multicultural, intergenerational and gender inclusive ensemble that can take on tough plays and make them seem new.  Their tiny theatre makes productions feel intimate with good friends as the cast.

Siswe Bansi is Dead:  It's always a welcome joy when a small theater company puts it all together. The three talented actors in Multi-Ethnic Theater's production bring the full emotional range of Fugard's characters to life. Vernon Medearis's Styles, the township photographer with a long solo story to tell in the play's first scene, is angry while reflective, understanding while at the same time a bit of a hustler. His hilarious recounting of his years working at the Ford plant in Port Elizabeth, South Africa is interrupted by the appearance of Sizwe Bansi -- that is, Robert Zwelinzima -- who would like a photograph taken, but he isn't too sure of his name. The first scene ends with the brightness of a flash bulb, and in the second scene Sizwe Bansi (David Stewart) and Buntu (Fred Pitts) begin to act out the three-scene flashback that eventually unlocks the mystery of why Sizwe Bansi is now "dead," and is using the new name of Robert Zwelinzima.  By the end of the play, Medearis, Stewart and Pitts have provided an insight into the grimy world of South African apartheid, as well as a personal revelation about the raw power of a small cast in a cramped theater with a story to tell.

No Place to Be Somebody:  You'll be hard pressed to say anything critical about this staging of Charles Gordone's award-winning play. The actors, Kijahre Fikiri (in the role of Gabe Gabriel), Ben Dziuba (Shanty Mulligan) and Fabian Herd (Johnny Williams), are first rate and exciting. Herd is explosive, Dziuba pulls off a difficult role and Fikiri -- well, he's brilliant. His soliloquies aat the beginning of each act and his long performance poem in the first act show a thespian ready for prime time. Three other notable performances come from  Rachel Raiput as Dee Jacobsen and Shaun Landry as Cora Beasely, both of whom are excellent foils for the fiery Johnny; and a terrific romp by Multi Ethnic Theater veteran Vernon Medearis as over-the-hill gangster Sweets Crane. The Greenwich Village cafe set provides plenty of space for a large cast to interact.

"Joe Turner's Come and Gone is August Wilson at his best and the intimate Next Stage Theater is a terrific place to see it."

"Twelve Angry Jurors keeps us involved in the detective work and has us cheering for the jury when it arrives at the proper verdict."

Jack Foley The Alsop Review & KPFA Radio

I saw--and very much enjoyed--the recent Multi Ethnic Theater production of William Saroyans The Time of Your Life, produced in the play's home town, San Francisco. Director/designer Lewis Campbell shifted the date of the play from 1939 to 1969, so the characters labor under the reality of a different war from the one Saroyan cried out against--though the fact of war remains important: "BOOOOOOOOOM WAR! O.k. War. I retreat. I hate war. I move to Sacramento."    The character who speaks those words is Harry, the eager-to-please young dancer/comedian originally played by Gene Kelly. In Campbell's production the character is played by a young African-American woman, Brandy Evans--but both the charm and the naivete of the character come through.

"Nick", the bartender, also undergoes a change of gender: A.K. Davenport, a woman, plays the part in a wonderfully bravura (and entirely convincing) way.  "Tom" is still something of dolt and a child, but in this production he is African-American. Indeed, the only African-American character included in Saroyan's play, Wesley, is here played by European-American John Jamieson, but Jamieson's piano playing is, as Saroyan describes it, suitably "out of this world." Melinda Maximova is excellent in the pivotal role of Kitty, stunning in her entrance, she is almost too beautiful for the character. In the original production Joe's speech about money was deemed too controversial and cut. In MET's production. T.J. Pierce as Joe gave us one of the evening's thrilling moments when, remaining seated, he magnificently directed the speech towards the slumming "society people" visiting the bar. Vernon Medearis was also a standout as he turned the garrulous Kit Carson character into a bona-fide African-American male. Harry Siltonen was an excellent "Arab," repeating the important line, "No foundation--all the way down the line"  Willie, Saroyan's "marble-game maniac," was played superbly--in a wheelchair!--by a disabled Japanese-American woman, Stephanie Miyashiro. The playwright's "Newsboy" was played by disabled African-American actress Afi-Tiombe Kambon, who also sang an excellent version of the Irish song, "Danny Boy." (When asked whether she is Irish, the character replies, "No, I'm Greek.")

Campbell's shifts of ethnicity and gender are entirely in the spirit of the play, which deliberately keeps itself open to diversity: whatever comes into "Nick's American Place" comes into it. "Maybe," speculates Nick, "they can't feel at home anywhere else." The play's openness is the source of both its optimism--despite the fact that there is "No foundation--all the way down the line"--and the sense it projects of a precious, guarded innocence.  It is precisely such an innocent-minded,  illusioned, and unsophisticated democracy that is at the center of Saroyan's deeply American play.

SF Independent:   For those who wear the label "San Franciscan" as a badge of honor, the hottest ticket in town is the latest production of William Saroyan's 1940 Pulitzer Prize winning The Time of Your Life at the Next Stage, 1620 Gough Street.  With universal themes of the class struggle, this "Time" is proof positive that cross-cultural and cross-gender casting works. The action takes place at Nick's, a San Francisco waterfront hangout, only Nick –  imbued with great compassion by AJ Davenport –  is a woman.  Myers Clark and Veronica Rocha are also standouts as the young lovers, Tom and Kitty.

SF Weekly:   William Saroyan had a taste for stories and plays about the average Joe, and The Time of Your Life is his epic.  Multi Ethnic Theater has cross-cast most of the characters. Nick the bartender is played by a woman, A.J. Davenport; the noisy longshoreman McCarthy is played by Bennie Lewis, who's black; and Willie the pinball wizard is played by Stephanie Miyashiro, in a wheelchair. Lewis and Vernon Medearis (playing a showy cowboy known as Kit Carson) know how to project their lines.  Director Lewis Campbell has designed a brilliant set, consisting of a full bar with a working beer tap.  The show captures the sound and rhythm of a waterfront dive.

Dan Wilson,  Bay Area On Line Theater:   At Multi EthnicTheater, Athol Fugard's Master Harold...and the Boys  manages to be beautiful, thoughtful,  powerful, and consciousness raising all at the same time.  The production  features three wonderful actors.  Fabian Herd succeeds in presenting  a complete human being.  Rama Kellum is riveting as Sam, the complex,  intelligent, and humane waiter/server.  Jason Arquin is fabulous as  young Master Harold.  All of them have mastered South African accents...and  carry it throughout the hour and a half show.

Mari Coates,  SF Weekly:   MET's production [of August Wilson's Fences] serves both Wilson's splendid play and the company's declared purpose to develop multicultural harmony and appreciation.  Director Campbell  has emphasized ensemble playing and has succeeded in creating a mood that reaches out to include the audience.

The Bay Guardian:   MET's Sarajevo Voices and Euripides' The Trojan Women is filled with harrowing modern content...a compelling piece of theatre...strong and resonant with vivid emotional immediacy.

Winifred Mann,  The Potrero View:   [In A TrojanWomen] it was refreshing to see how naturally and gracefully actors with disabilities were integrated into the action.  With its themes of war, rape, slavery, lust and loss, the play maintains its poignancy even today.  The contemporary feel, fed by modern costumes and sound effects lasts throughout the production.

Lysa Allman,  San Francisco Bay View:   MET wonderfully utilizes multi ethnic players, often disregarding the original or expected racially assigned cast of characters.  The performances are illuminating and truly transcend ethnic boundaries.

SFLIVE,  City Arts and Entertainment:   Community theatre is alive and well at Multi Ethnic Theater.  [They're] carrying the banner for low budget, seat-of-the-pants theatre.  But don't expect performances to match the meager resources.  MET's hard-working group of actors are capable of conjuring characterizations worthy of many a downtown stage.

Max Millard,  The Sun Reporter:   Multi Ethnic Theater lives up to its name.  The staff, the actors, and the audience are bringing people together for a common goal.  An organization like this deserves support.

Jennifer Kahana, Director, Community Arts Ticket Service :   The performance Sunday evening was crisp and thought provoking.  I'm proud that Center Stage is able to partner such creative work.

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