We need to talk, to listen, to share and understand. We bear a torch to enlighten and prepare. We carry a burden that, to many is invisible. We are artists, creatives, thinkers and enablers We are the ones that shape the cup that holds the thing we call civilization.
As global culture continues to diversify in fractal like complexity. Our changing world view slips further from our grasp as individuals. Our understanding of the core values of creativity and it’s impact on our daily lives becoming ever more distant and abstract. However, there are those among us who seem able to draw a line through this complexity, strike a light in darkening times and bring understanding and acceptance to the confusion and fear.

To frame our thoughts and bring the voice of reason to our meeting this November we have invited Mike Daisey & Todd Lester to speak about their role as artistic chameleon and activist, presenting many faces to the world, crossing many boundaries in attempting to forge a vibrant common truth regarding the worth and necessity for creativity. Attempting to unashamedly uses their artistic voice to express their concerns about, and draw attention to, what is happening in the world that they consider urgent and important.

Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues, which include last season’s critically acclaimed The Last Cargo Cult, the controversial How Theater Failed America, the six-hour epic Great Men of Genius, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, and his latest work, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. He has performed in venues on five continents, ranging from Off-Broadway at the Public Theater to remote islands in the South Pacific, from the Sydney Opera House to abandoned theaters in post-Communist Tajikistan. He’s been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, as well as a commentator and contributor for WIRED, Vanity Fair, Slate, Salon, NPR and the BBC. His first film, Layover, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival this year, and a feature film of his monologue If You See Something Say Something is currently in post production.  His second book, Rough Magic, a collected anthology of his monologues, will be published in 2011. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and is the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, the Sloan Foundation’s Galileo Prize, and a MacDowell Fellowship.