A Unique Brown Club Theater Event: “Hotel Happy”

A TIMELY, AMBITIOUS FARCE PLUS A POST-SHOW DISCUSSION WITH BROWN PROFESSOR ELENA SHIH

The Brown University Club in NY, Brown University Latino Alumni Council, and Houses on the Moon Theater Company welcome you to Hotel Happy! At this high-end erotic resort in Bogotá, Colombia, sex workers Sofi, Lulu and Candela are hiding a displaced donkey after rescuing him from an unhappy fate. When three American mercenaries visit the hotel on a special mission, the women must protect their new friend at all costs because, as they will soon discover, he is no ordinary donkey.

Sunday, February 18 at 2pm
122CC’s 2nd Floor Theater
150 1st Avenue between East 9th & 10th Streets

Tickets will only be distributed by a Brown Club representative at the theatre from 1:15pm to 1:45pm.
Please do NOT go to the box office and please arrive no later than 1:45pm.

A play about sexual tourism in Colombia and that industry’s close connection to the country’s ongoing armed conflict, Hotel Happy explores U.S.-Colombian relationships using the power of absurdity to reflect how the decimating effects of war displace us all.

Following the performance, there will be a discussion with Elena Shih, Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown. Professor Shih has done extensive work on human trafficking and labor exploitation and is the author of notable books on the subject. Shih will be joined by Dayana Tavarez ’19, Case Manager – Immigration Intervention Project for Sanctuary for Families. While at Brown, Tavarez was a Royce Fellow who worked closely with Professor Shih with a focus on sex trafficking in Mexico City.

Houses on the Moon Theater Company was founded in 2001 with a mission to dispel ignorance and isolation through the theatrical amplification of unheard voices. Through creative workshops, original performances, post-show conversations, and accessible ticketing, Houses on the Moon unites communities through the public sharing of untold stories.

Elena Shih is Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University, where she directs a human trafficking research cluster through the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Shih is the author of two books: Manufacturing Freedom: Trafficking Rescue, Rehabilitation, and the Slave Free Good (University of California Press), and White Supremacy, Colonialism, and the Racism of Anti-Trafficking (Routledge). Her research and teaching centers sex worker and migrant worker perspectives to understand how white supremacy and white saviorism underwrite the global anti-trafficking movement. Shih serves on the editorial boards for The Anti-Trafficking Review, a peer-reviewed journal of the Global Alliance to Combat Traffic in Women, Gender and Society, and openDemocracy’s Beyond Trafficking and Slavery op-ed platform. Recent op-eds about her research and organizing as a core collective member of Red Canary Song appear in the New York Times and Providence Journal. She earned a PhD in Sociology from UCLA, and a BA in Asian Studies from Pomona College.

Dayana Tavarez ’19 is a Senior Case Manager at the Immigration Intervention Project at Sanctuary for Families, a non-profit organization. Within her role, she engages with survivors of gender-based violence through a holistic model, providing the wraparound services outside of their legal immigration case. Ms. Tavarez engages with her work through a framework of gender and sexuality, community-based approaches, and critical humanitarianism. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Ethnic Studies from Brown University.

Susan Goodwillie (Moderator) is the Managing Director of Houses on the Moon Theater Company. She is a co-founder of SPACE on Ryder Farm (est. 2009), a nonprofit artist residency program in Brewster, New York. Susan worked for four years as a social worker at the Mental Health Project at the Urban Justice Center, supporting homeless and housing insecure New Yorkers living with mental health concerns. She then moved to Nairobi, Kenya, to build the capacity of Flone Initiative, a Kenyan NGO working to create safer public spaces for women and girls in African cities. Susan believes in weaving together her two skillsets – theater and social work – to build sustainable organizations, support teams in their work and wellbeing and create a more just world.