The Next 15 Minutes: Full Spectrum Futures Showcase
1736 Franklin St, Oakland
May 17, 2025
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: 2025
INTERIOR, CALIFORNIA BALLROOM.
Dim light from yards-high blown-glass fixtures gently illuminate a large hall filled with stackable metal chairs. Two large umbrella lights stand on tall tripods, one stage left, the other on the carpeted floor below stage right. A line of white-seated low-backed stools, red solo cups beneath them, sit in front of white screen and a thick pink draped velvet curtain. A glossy podium stage right, mic’d, a director testing levels with the sound engineer at the foot of the stage. A handful of other writers and actors mill about, test hand-held mics, sing snippets of Bruno Mars’ “Grenade” quietly.
Snacks, manned by writer Okechukwu (center), attendees.
Attendees filter in, snag glasses of Cotê West wine and boats of popcorn and candy, take their seats.
MAUD ALCORN and FLAVIA ELISA MORA of the Betti Ono Foundation share opening remarks and the most sincere and impactful land acknowledgment this writer has yet to witness respectively, and welcome guests to an evening of…. Visions of the Future.
Betti Ono Artist in Residence CELIA C. PETERS gets on the mic next, shares her vision: space for voices previously unheard and unrepresented, an artistic reckoning full of queerness and Blackness, bringing marginalized perspectives and stories to the light. PETERS has used this platform she has created to champion those around her; tonight, fellow East Bay sci-fi writers ready to get their stories heard. She required each of the other four to direct the works themselves as well, a challenge for some, to both protect the integrity of their work and to push them professionally.
The showcase of “Spectrum Futures” begins.
In under three hours one recent evening at the 99-year old California Ballroom, we were treated to glimpses into five worlds, each brought to life by a semi-recurrent cast of actors and all filled with highs and lows, unsettling circumstances. They teemed with energy, ready to break out of the pages the actors gripped, and made for a highly successful evening of bite-sized, bare-bones but drama-filled readings performed to an audience of adoring family, friends, and fellow big-time sci-fi nerds.
Beginning with Tajiana Okechukwu “Heritage,” an autobiographically inspired non-halucinagically-induced psycadelic romp through downtown Oakland and lead character Ijeoma’s identity as an assimilated Nigerian American, we did as we were told: “don’t sit back and relax, lean forward and engage.” A fun and funny entree into wackier worlds than what we encounter nightly around town ourselves, it whet our appetites for weirdness and the woo-woo. The cast played heavily into physical humor despite limited props (aforementioned solo cups and a birthday tiara), and delivered on Okechukwu’s irreverent script, leaving us eager at the cliffhanger ending.
Peters’ “GODSPEED” (currently in production with some really big and very fun names attached!) and “No Damages” by Ginger Yifan Chen stood out for their fleshed out screen directions and shot descriptions, making for immersive worlds easy to picture and both bolster by strong performances from narrators Comika Hartford and Joy Ofodu respectively. Both futures involve cyborgs and capitalism, but little else; their divergent cityscapes are filled with a Bay Area of 2060 (“GODSPEED”), and The Factory, The Dollhouse, and The System (“No Damages”). Pick your poison, I suppose.
Timothy Slater’s “Celestial Chains” contained just those—chains of the gods, as it were—along with a good dose of UFO lore, closing out the night with an abduction, as I’d at least kind of been waiting for. But it was “What Does It Cost To Be Civil?” by Ina Adele Ray, professed to usually be a documentarian, that abducted my heart.
Based on a short story written by her father, Ray said she read it and it screamed “film me.” In a retro-futurist Oakland, a very “everything is computure” type of time, old man Albert (Paul S. Flores) is losing his mind to robo-calls. A very particular robo, that is, and Susan A.I. (an excellent Katherine Park) will stop at nothing to get her due, no matter the cost, no matter how petty. Humans and tech can coexist civilly, right? Now, how hard was that? Delightful from top to finish, “What Does It Cost To Be Civil?” kept us giggling and borderline heckling, and, I believe, screaming to see (hear?) Susan on screen.
With a range of concepts, free snacks, and five worlds of fictional fun, the evening provided a window into possible event futures for nerds of all ages of interests, too.
