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Asian Art Museum Presents: The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot Play Reading

As Asian communities across the world are seeing a rise in hate crimes, the Asian Art Museum reconfirms its commitment to fighting racism, xenophobia, prejudice, and discrimination in all its forms. With this in mind, the museum’s June virtual programs celebrate our LGBTQ community’s resilience, tenacity, and creativity. #WashTheHate

An excerpt reading and author discussion of the original theater piece “The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot,” produced by the Tenderloin Museum. The play dramatizes the events surrounding the eponymous 1966 event that catalyzed LGBTQ activism in San Francisco and worldwide. A groundbreaking hybrid of theater, site-specific interactivity, and living history, “The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot” was directly inspired by the San Francisco riot at a popular Tenderloin cafeteria, three years before New York’s more famous Stonewall Riots. Since the 2004 rediscovery of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot by historian Susan Stryker, it has become an integral piece of the Tenderloin’s identity — and this play offers a singular opportunity for audiences to celebrate the individuals whose tenacious spirit spawned a civil rights movement.

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Thursday Nights are supported by Wells Fargo.