Thank you to Randy Adams, and 'Real Ones' like you who help make GOOD THINGS TRUE!
Theatre is the pursuit of happiness with your compatriots; we share stories to eliminate the distance.
ESP's Come From Away at Super Summer Theatre 
Randy Adams, Broadway Producer
To those who read the Junkyard Dog Productions website, Randy Adams is a Tony® and Olivier®-award winning Producer, but to me he is my wonderful former Managing Director at the Tony® -award winning TheatreWorks Silicon Valley from last century. We have Randy and his friends to thank for some of the most transformational acts and artists of our contemporary American Theatre in the past 25 years. I know this because I have watched his impact grow around the world as my own Directing career has evolved along with it.
His support helped me find my way to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland from working-class Fremont, CA before Silicon Valley was cool, but the world has Randy Adams to thank for more than hits including MEMPHIS and COME FROM AWAY, and icons like Jessica Chastain and James Monroe Iglehart. We have his example of inspired dignity, authenticity, and grit to guide us. Randy is one of three gay mentors who encouraged me to show humanity with some SPINE on stage in the years when LGBTQIA+, women, non-white and the working-class were expected to serve the Arts without asking and/or telling our Truth on the street.
It came as no surprise to me then, when I ran into Nakazee Harris at a #NOH8 photoshoot and learned that she, of all people, was presenting Come From Away on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with her company Everybody Sings Productions LV (ESP) for our famed outdoor Super Summer Theatre. Nakazee answered the community call with her incredible professional voice at The Asylum Theatre's No Snow Santa Show years earlier, offering a free holiday performance for working families.
The tradition of encouragement through culture is the legacy Humanity has left to itself; our precious collection of memory, connection, and survival from perilous pasts filled with lessons learned. Theatre gives our embodiment access to the domain of human experience otherwise denied to us by circumstances, rather than our rights. Theatres dedicated to contemporary storytellers and revelation of timeless Truth are the wellspring of communities, economies, and careers. That is the secret to the success of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and the vision behind The Asylum Theatre's 30 year mission as an international haven for poetic, humanitarian collaboration.
The Asylum Theatre has held its own in unlikely circumstances thanks to the support, and example of Randy Adams who never forgets to offer a seat to rising artists' voices alongside his own when he is "Comin' to the table," including the Tony stage, where he used his acceptance speech to tell the story of integrating the radio waves; name checking every regional theatre across the country which helped develop the project. I learned about the essential role of a focused and strategic advocate for the work across distances and economic sectors in the office watching Randy; mentorship that has helped me to pay it forward producing new work around the world, including with artists in Kyiv through WEST Association, and The Kafka Project.
The Asylum produced Reflections on Refuge in 2022. Alex is now drafted, reporting from the front. Veronika Streltsova is the Director of the Kafka Project in Kyiv.
Cheers, Randy Adams, for proving how Theatre works to keep hope's strength growing. Thank you to all the local artists around the world who serve to embody Truth which resonates for the Love, sweat and tears you have helped generations channel together. We come from away, always back to each other when we walk the talk of Theatre's call; welcoming strangers to the table, parting as friends harmonizing our stories until we meet again. This is the way, every breath, the start of a moment.
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