FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 4, 2007

Contact: Nicole Lane – Insight Out Theatre Collective, Marketing & Public Relations Director
360.601.4298 - nicolealane@comcast.net

Contact: Lise Harwin - Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital, Public Relations Specialist
503.415.5725 - LHarwin@LHS.ORG

Theatre Arts & Healing Arts Hand-in-Hand
Art Exhibit Featuring Hospitalized Young Artists

Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital & Insight Out Theatre Collective
Partner on “THE YELLOW BOAT” Production

Portland, Oregon – One of the most inspiring aspects of living in the Portland area is to watch how our community members reach out to each other to better the whole. It is that sense of collective compassion and connection that makes our city truly unique. Such is the case with the partnership between Insight Out Theatre Collective and Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital who are working together making a local community link to a play called The Yellow Boat by David Saar.

The Yellow Boat tells the true story of the young and gifted visual artist Benjamin Saar, a hemophiliac, who contracts HIV, and then AIDS through a blood-transfusion. While in the hospital, Benjamin works with the hospital’s Child Life Specialist to help him learn to cope with his diseases, she inspires him to artistically process his feelings and fears. Subsequently, Benjamin creates inspired drawings and paintings that transform his pain and express his understanding of life. The play examines how fear and ignorance grip the perspectives of the adults who surround him only to be released by the heart and imagination of this young boy. Under the direction Andrés Alcalá and with the choreography of Robin Lane of Do Jump!, Benjamin’s imagination dances to life in vivid color sharing his powerful, transformational messages full of hope, art and life for ages 8 through 98.

Through a partnership with the Child Life Specialists at Legacy Emanuel Children's Hospital, the production will also exhibit the artistic expressions of hospitalized young artists, who much like Benjamin Saar work with the Visual Arts to process their experiences. Their paintings and drawings will be displayed at the production and incorporated into a projected prologue to the play. The Child Life staff is also working with the actors and directors as they do research to become authentic characters in this true play. In October, the director of The Yellow Boat, Andrés Alcalá, contacted The Child Life department at Emanuel Hospital to learn more about the program. The conversation he had with Legacy ECH Child Life Specialist Lynn Davis has led to a full partnership.

“Our patients are so excited to know that their art will dramatically impact the theater-going experience for The Yellow Boat’s audiences,” said Davis. “It has been a privilege to work with Alcalá and the actors – their vision has culminated in such a unique way to blend art and healthcare.”

The Yellow Boat is a recipient of the Distinguished Play Award from the American Alliance Theatre and Education. This production of The Yellow Boat gives Insight Out another opportunity to produce a play that addresses challenging themes and social issues with the aim of creating cross-generational and cultural dialogue through interdisciplinary performance art. The Yellow Boat is produced by special arrangement with Anchorage Press PLAYS, Louisville, Kentucky USA. The play is sponsored by Eyes on Broadway, Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital, Oregon Children’s Theatre, +alcheme creative, Smith Creative Group, Willamette Week, Metro Parent Magazine, eROI and the Jupiter Hotel.