Olivia Records: The Production of a Movement.

This article looks at the early years of Olivia Records, setting the context for the historic release of the album Where Would I Be Without You. From its origins as a Washington, D.C.-based activist collective in 1973, Olivia became a hugely successful recording company, marketing radical lesbian recordings and performances that soon defined the "women's music" movement. Both artistically and politically, Olivia's woman-identified albums became the soundtrack for a generation awakening to lesbian activism. Pat Parker and Judy Grahn's 1976 spoken-word recording is a unique demonstration of Olivia's radical production values and expanding catalog.

'Ready. Set. ACTION!' A theater-based obesity prevention program for children: a feasibility study.

This study examined the feasibility of implementing an innovative theater-based after-school program, 'Ready. Set. ACTION!', to reach ethnically diverse and low-income children and their parents with obesity prevention messages. The study population included 96 children and 61 parents. Children were in fourth to sixth grade and 41% were overweight at baseline. Program impact was evaluated with a pre/post-randomized controlled study design, but a major focus was placed on the process evaluation conducted in the intervention schools. Intervention children and parents reported high program satisfaction and that they had made changes or intended to make positive changes in their behaviors due to program participation. However, few meaningful differences between the intervention and control conditions were found at follow-up. Thus, the combined process and impact evaluation results suggest that the intervention was effective in leading to increased awareness of the need for behavioral change, but was not powerful enough on its own to lead to behavioral change. From this feasibility study, we concluded that Ready. Set. ACTION! offers promise as a creative intervention strategy. The next research step may be to incorporate theater-based programs into more comprehensive school-based interventions, with both educational and environmental components, and evaluate program impact.

Theater as a behavior change strategy: qualitative findings from a school-based intervention.

This study aimed to assess children's opinions about participating in a school-based theater program (Very Important Kids) and to determine their perceptions as to how their participation influenced their weight-related attitudes and behaviors. Focus groups were conducted with 4th through 6th grade students who participated in a theater program where they developed and performed a play about weight-related issues. Participants identified the personal relevance of the play's material, the opportunity to be a role model, and being part of a team as the key aspects that enhanced their enjoyment of the program. Increased resilience to comments from others, positive changes in communication with peers, and improved body satisfaction emerged as the prominent changes students identified as occurring as a result of their participation in the program. Findings suggest that theater is a feasible and possibly effective strategy for use in school-based interventions aimed at the prevention of weight-related disorders.

Negotiating lesbian worlds: the festival communities.

As temporary but annually re-occurring communities, women's music festivals became a profound symbol of late twentieth century lesbian culture. These summer "Wombstocks" made available the best of lesbian music and comedy in presumably safe settings for sexual display, political networking, and Goddess-centered spirituality. Yet such lesbian utopias were never without conflict. They served as sounding boards for every issue simmering in the lesbian community: racism, classism, lesbian mothers of boy children, S/M, and, most recently, the exclusion of transgender women from woman-only space. The twenty-plus festivals produced from 1974 to the present day each tackled political conflict, production values, and audience/camper services very differently. What was consistent among all festival communities and staff crews was the presentation of lesbian WORK, and the appreciative vibe from those attending-many of whom declared that the feeling of freedom from one festival week each summer fueled their energy for the entire year that followed.