Mixed Race Studies

One Drop of Love is Headed to Broadway!

Theater Row
410 West 42nd Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues)
New York, New York 10036
Thursday, 2016-10-13, 19:30 EDT (Local Time) Sold Out!
Sunday, 2016-10-16, 14:00 EDT (Local Time)

How does our belief in ‘race’ affect our most intimate relationships? One Drop of Love travels near and far, in the past and present to explore family, race, love and pain – and a path towards reconciliation. It is produced by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

One Drop of Love is headed to Broadway as part of the 7th Annual United Solo Theatre Festival on Thursday, October 16th. Show starts promptly at 2:00 pm. No late seating. General admission $23.25.

When purchasing tickets from the Telecharge website, be certain you’ve chosen Sunday, October 16th at 2:00PM. See you there – bring friends!

Ticketholders are invited to a celebration and discussion with Fanshen at nearby Chez Josephine following the performance.

Purchase tickets here.

One Drop of Love: Middle School / High School Educators Guide

One Drop of Love: #TRUTH #JUSTICE #LOVE
2016
13 pages

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Playwright, Performer and Producer

Show Overview

Racial awareness lacks “One Drop of Love”

The Current
St. Petersburg, Florida
2016-10-06

Mereysa Taylor, Co-Opinion Editor

Cox DiGiovanni artfully narrates her own education about being mixed race in America in efforts to start a larger national dialogue. photo by Jeff Lorch

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni graced Eckerd with her one-woman performance about how race was constructed in the U.S. and the ways in which it affects our most intimate relationships on Sept. 15.

“People lived with the rule, that one drop of black blood, deemed you black in a national census,” she said, remarking on the history of our national census and the notorious “one drop rule.”

Her performance, called “One Drop of Love,” barely filled Miller Auditorium; more senior citizens of the surrounding St. Petersburg area attended than Eckerd students did. Shame on us.

Cox DiGiovanni tours around the country, performing her wildly entertaining, educational and autobiographical piece on race, justice, truth and love. A mixed race woman herself, she found her passion in acting and storytelling, and what began as a thesis project for her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in 2013 bore an influential piece of performance art. She has since then used her platform and creative license to educate and empathize with the plight of racial minorities in this country, including those of mix race.

At this school, this is a particular conversation that nobody really wants to have — it’s too awkward, too uncomfortable to face the fact that there may be something wrong with the way race is handled at Eckerd– whether that be in the classroom, on tours or with Eckerd brochures that like to depict a rainbow of color in our predominantly white student body…

Read the entire article here.

One Drop of Love preceded by I’ve Just had a Dream

The 18th Annual Roxbury International Film Festival
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Barbara and Theodore Alfond Auditorium (Auditorium G36)
Avenue of the Arts
465 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
2016-06-30, 20:00-21:35 EDT (Local Time)

Film still from One Drop of Love

I’ve Just had a Dream by Javi Navarro (USA, 2014, 7 min.). Two girls. Two cultures. Two visions. A dream. They say that dreams are only dreams; the only thing that makes them different is the person who dreams.

One Drop of Love by Carol Banker, written and produced by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni (USA, 2016, 67 min.). One Drop of Love is the feature film of a multimedia solo performance by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni. Produced by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, this extraordinary one-woman show incorporates filmed images, photographs and animation to tell the story of how the notion of ‘race’ came to be in the United States and how it affects our most intimate relationships. A moving memoir, One Drop takes audiences from the 1700s to the present, to cities all over the U.S. and to West and East Africa, where the narrator and her family spent time in search of their ‘racial’ roots. The ultimate goal of the show is to encourage everyone to discuss ‘race’ and racism openly and critically.

Followed by a discussion with the filmmakers.

For more information, click here.

Inspired By — A Q&A With Actor-Writer-Producer Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni

Goldstar Pulse
2016-05-27

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni is creator and star of One Drop of Love, a solo show co-produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. She’s a spokesperson on the arts and racial identity, a board member of Mixed Roots Stories, and an honoree at next week’s Media Done Responsibly Awards for her commitment to diversity in Hollywood.

Tell us about what you do.

I’m the writer, producer and performer of a one-woman show (One Drop of Love) exploring the intersections of race, class and gender and how these affect our most intimate relationships. I’m an educator and have taught (and learned from) students from all over the world. I’m also an advocate for equity and inclusion at all levels of media content production.

And you haven’t run off to do something else because…

I’m named after a book, Fanshen by William Hinton, about a small village in China that used this word as their motto. ‘Fan Shen’ symbolizes the creation of a society in which everyone contributes and benefits equitably. So you could say my parents gave me a sense of responsibility from birth, and I happily do what I can to live up to my name personally and professionally…

Read the entire interview here.

“One Drop of Love”: The Keynote Performance for the Mixed Heritage Conference at UCLA

University of California, Los Angeles
James West Alumni Center
325 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, California 90095
Saturday, 2016-04-30 14:30-16:00 PDT (Local Time)

Join us for some or all of this enlightening and affirming conference. One Drop will start at 2:30 pm in the James West Alumni Center.

TICKETS: FREE and open to the public!

We remain so very grateful for your continued support and look forward to sharing One Drop with you.

For more information, click here. To RSVP, click here.

Tribute to Prince

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni
2016-04-24

One Drop of Love pays tribute to the one and only Prince with: June Snow (& Billy), G. Reginald Daniel, Paul Spickard, Nancy Fathi, Michael Prewitt, Alex Regalado, Chandra Crudup and Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni

Voices of Diversity Presents “One Drop of Love” at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center

Jeanné Wagner Theatre
Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center
138 West 300 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84101
Tuesday, 2016-03-29, 18:00-20:00 MDT (Local Time)

10th Anniversary of the Social Justice Lecture Series: Allies for Equity
Presented by Voices of Diversity of The University of Utah/College of Social Work
2015-2016

One Drop of Love is a multimedia solo performance by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni. This extraordinary one-woman show incorporates filmed images, photographs, and animation to tell the story of how the notion of “race” came to be in the United States and how it affects our most intimate relationships. A moving memoir, One Drop of Love takes audiences from the 1700s to the present, to cities all over the U.S., and to West and East Africa, where Fanshen and her father spent time in search of their “racial” roots. The show encourages everyone to discuss “race” and racism openly and critically.

The performance will be immediately followed by a 30-minute Q&A with the artist. All are invited to stay after the show for a reception celebrating 10 years of the Social Justice Lecture Series: Allies for Equity!

• All events in this series are free and open to the public
• 2 NASW-endorsed CEUs will be available for $10 per event
• For more information, please call (801) 581-8455.

Meet Team One Drop: Ben Affleck

Fanshen Cox
2016-02-10

One Drop of Love is a multimedia one-woman show exploring the intersections of race, class and gender – and in search of justice and love. The show is written and performed by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni.

For more information, click here.

In an increasingly multiracial America, identity is a fluid thing

89.3 KPCC: Southern California Public Radio
Pasadena, California
2016-02-16

Leslie Berestein Rojas, Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter

If there’s any part of town that’s solidly Latino, it’s where Walter Thompson Hernandez grew up, in Huntington Park.

The city, on the southeast fringe of Los Angeles, is 97 percent Latino. Thompson-Hernandez was raised there by his mother, an immigrant from Jalisco, in what he describes as a very Mexican household.

“Quinceaneras, Vicente Fernandez, chilaquiles – those were very prominent fixtures in my upbringing,” said Thompson-Hernandez, now a graduate student researcher at the University of Southern California.

But he was different: “I saw myself as Mexican, but I stood out. I was always the tallest kid, had the curliest hair, the darkest skin,” he said.

His father was African-American, born in Oakland. His parents were estranged when he was very young. His mother always told him about his mixed heritage. But it didn’t really hit him until they moved to Palms, on the Westside.

“When we moved to the Westside, most of my friends were African-American,” Thompson-Hernandez said. “In a way, I sort of longed to identify that part of my heritage. So all my friends were black. I would spend countless hours, sleepovers at their house. So I came into this black identity by experiencing blackness with my friends.”

In his early twenties, he reconnected with his father and his side of the family. It was around that time that he first hear the term “Blaxican,” for black and Mexican. It resonated – and he ran with it…

…This evolving dance with race and identity is a familiar theme for Los Angeles actor and playwright Fanshen Cox. She produces a one-woman show called “One Drop of Love,” which she performs around the country. Her father is a Jamaican immigrant. Her mother is Native American and Danish.

Cox remembers how some black relatives and friends in Washington, D.C. identified her as a child: “In D.C., which is where I was born, I was ‘red bone’ and ‘high yellow.’”

These terms labeled her as a light-skinned black person – and set her at a distance, closer to white, as she describes it. Then her family moved to liberal Cambridge, Massachusetts…

Read the entire article here.