Creative Capital

Los Angeles Poverty Department

Henriëtte Brouwers is the associate director of Los Angeles Poverty Department and a performer and director with 20 years of experience in Europe and the U.S. Her work has been presented at 7 Stages in Atlanta, the Baltimore Theater Project and Touchstone Theater in Pennsylvania. Her solo project, La Lengua: the Tongue of Cortes, was presented at Highways in Los Angeles in 2000. Broüwers has taught theater at the University of Tennessee, Baltimore High School for the Arts, Towson University and Pomona College. She is an artist-in-residence at the 18th Street Arts Complex in Santa Monica, CA.

Kevin Michael Key is a performer, community organizer and attorney. He is active in the recovery community in downtown Los Angeles and in such advocacy groups as the Los Angeles Action Network and Critical Resistance, a national group addressing the criminal justice system and its effects on communities of color. Key has performed with Los Angeles Poverty Department in Agents & Assets and has traveled with the company for productions and residencies in New York, Charlotte, Utrecht and the Paris suburb of Glenvilliers.

John Malpede is a director, performer, writer and the founder of the theater ensemble Los Angeles Poverty Department. The company’s mission is to create performances that connect lived experience to social forces that shape the lives of poor people. Malpede has produced community-engaged projects throughout the U.S. and in the U.K., The Netherlands, France and Belgium. He has received a “Bessie” New York Dance and Performance Award, San Francisco Art Institute’s Kent Award, the LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award and individual artist fellowships from NYSCA, the NEA and the California Arts Council. He is a 2008 fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies.

Pamela Miller-Macias is a magazine writer and editor from New York City. She joined Los Angeles Poverty Department in the summer of 2007 and has worked there in various capacities, including administration, grant writing, photography, event program writing and editing, props and costuming. She made her stage-managing debut in the group’s December production of Utopia/Dystopia at the Disney Hall’s REDCAT Theater.