Tracie Collins (born October 22, 1975) is an author, business strategist, entrepreneur and public speaker. [1] As a writer, Collins is best known as the writer, director, and producer of her fourth stage production Cold Piece of Werk, which addresses human trafficking / sex trafficking, specifically in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area) city of Oakland, California. [2] This awarded Collins a Mayoral Proclamation from the City of Oakland, declaring March 14th 2015, Tracie Collins Day.
Collins was born in San Francisco, as Tracie Monae Enis, the daughter of Frankie Charles Enis, a bus driver for San Francisco Municipal Railway (SF Muni or Muni) and El Wanda Braynen, a legal secretary. She is the eldest of three siblings. Collins credits her father for introducing her to the theatre. Collins took acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco. [3]
Collins was an actress in the three productions. [4] Previous work includes: The V Monologues: A Black Woman’s Interpretation (2013), Knocking at Love’s Door (2014), and Girlfriend Chronicles (2014). In 2009, Collins’ earliest theatrical performances include portraying "Lorelle" in Dream Girls [5] and "Pam" in Misery Loves Company at Black Repertory Group Theater in Berkeley, California.
In 2009, Collins set up a company, Tracie Collins Productions.
in 2010, Collins was cast as "Tonisha" in The Postwoman, a film by JD Walker. Also in 2010 Collins organized a fashion gala for larger women, called "Kiss the Curves". [6] In 2011 the show moved to Hollywood. [7]
In 2013, Collins directed the play "The V Monologues: A Black Woman’s Interpretations at Kaiser Center Lakeside Theater in Oakland, California. She has since written three more plays, a one-woman show Who is Tracie Collins?, a romantic comedy Knocking at Love's Door, [8] and Cold Piece of Werk, all of which she produced and directed at the same theater.
Collins has explored women's rights, racism, and issues of social injustice. [9] Collins cast mostly San Francisco Bay Area actors in her productions. [10]
Collins wrote Cold Piece of Werk after witnessing young girls walking on the streets of International Boulevard [11] and wanted to call attention to the human trafficking in California epidemic taking place in her neighborhood. [12] Oakland, California Mayor Libby Schaff proclaimed Saturday, March 14, 2015, (opening night of Cold Piece of Werk) as Tracie Collins Day. [13]
In 2015, Tracie Collins Productions was nominated for an Oakland Indie Award, [14] but did not win. Also that year, production began on the film version of Cold Piece of Werk. [15]
Collins currently has several television and film projects in development.
In 2016 Collins lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and is the mother of three children. [16]
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 808,988 residents as of 2023, San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of California behind Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose. The city covers a land area of 46.9 square miles at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second-most densely populated major U.S. city behind New York City and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind four of New York City's boroughs. Among the 92 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2022.As of 2023, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA CSA is the 5th largest in the nation, with an approximate population of over 9,001,024.
The Castro Theatre is a historic movie palace in the Castro District of San Francisco, California. The venue became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, it was built in 1922 with a California Churrigueresque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window surmounted by a scrolling pediment framing a niche—to the basilica of Mission Dolores nearby. Its designer, Timothy L. Pflueger, also designed Oakland's Paramount Theater and other movie theaters in California during that period. The theater has more than 1,400 seats.
Oakland Arena is an indoor arena located in Oakland, California, United States. From its opening in 1966 until 1996, it was known as the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena. After a major renovation completed in 1997, the arena was renamed The Arena in Oakland until 2005 and Oracle Arena from 2006 to 2019. It is often referred to as the Oakland Coliseum Arena as it is part of the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Complex with the adjacent Oakland Coliseum. Oakland Arena seats 19,596 fans for basketball.
The Embarcadero is the eastern waterfront of Port of San Francisco and a major roadway in San Francisco, California. It was constructed on reclaimed land along a three mile long engineered seawall, from which piers extend into the bay. It derives its name from the Spanish verb embarcar, meaning "to embark"; embarcadero itself means "the place to embark." The Central Embarcadero Piers Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 20, 2002.
Embarcadero station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit subway station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between Drumm Street and Beale Street near The Embarcadero, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and surrounding areas. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below. Embarcadero station opened in May 1976 – almost two years after service began through the Transbay Tube – as an infill station.
Powell Street station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between 4th Street and 5th Street, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and surrounding areas. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below. The station is served by the BART Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue lines, and the Muni Metro J Church, K Ingleside, L Taraval, M Ocean View, N Judah, and S Shuttle lines.
Civic Center/UN Plaza station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between 7th Street and 8th Street, it is named for the Civic Center neighborhood and the adjacent United Nations Plaza. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below.
Castro station is a Muni Metro station at the intersection of Market Street, Castro Street, and 17th Street in the Castro District of San Francisco, California. The underground station is served by the K Ingleside, M Ocean View, and S Shuttle lines. The F Market line serves the station on the street level at 17th and Castro.
The San Francisco Bay Area, which includes the major cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, hosts five major league sports franchises, with a major women's sports franchise soon to start play, as well as several other professional and college sports teams, and hosts other sports events.
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is the oldest Jewish film festival in the world, and currently the largest with a 2016 attendance figure of 40,000 at screenings in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, San Rafael, and Palo Alto. The three-week summer festival is held in San Francisco, California, usually at the Castro Theater in San Francisco and other cinemas in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, San Rafael, and Palo Alto, and features contemporary and classic independent Jewish film from around the world. In 2015, the organization re-branded itself as the Jewish Film Institute, retaining the name "San Francisco Jewish Film Festival" for the annual film festival.
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including the San Francisco Bay. The Association of Bay Area Governments defines the Bay Area as including the nine counties that border the estuaries of San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and Suisun Bay: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties which are not officially part of the San Francisco Bay Area, such as the Central Coast counties of Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey, or the Central Valley counties of San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus. The Bay Area is known for its natural beauty, prominent universities, technology companies, and affluence. The Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network.
California Shakespeare Theater is a regional theater located in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Its performance space, the Lt. G. H. Bruns III Memorial Amphitheater, is located in Orinda, while the administrative offices, rehearsal hall, costume and prop shop are located in Berkeley.
The San Francisco trolleybus system forms part of the public transportation network serving San Francisco, in the state of California, United States. Opened on October 6, 1935, it presently comprises 15 lines and is operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, commonly known as Muni, with around 300 trolleybuses. In San Francisco, these vehicles are also known as "trolley coaches", a term that was the most common name for trolleybuses in the United States in the middle decades of the 20th century. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 42,240,000, or about 142,700 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024.
Chase Center is an indoor arena in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The building is the home venue for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Golden State Valkyries of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), and occasionally for the University of San Francisco men's and women's basketball teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Warriors, who have been located in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1962, played their home games at Oakland Arena in Oakland from 1971 to 2019. Chase Center opened on September 6, 2019, and seats 18,064 for Warriors games.
San Francisco Playhouse is a non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California, founded in 2003 by Bill English and Susi Damilano. The theater stages nine plays yearly, including Broadway plays, musicals, and world and regional premieres.
San Francisco City Football Club, commonly abbreviated to SF City, SF City FC, or SFCFC, is a supporter-owned soccer club located in San Francisco, California that competes in USL League Two.
The African-American Shakespeare Company (AASC) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit professional regional theatre company in San Francisco, California. Since its founding in 1994 Sherri Young has been its Executive Director and in 2009 L. Peter Callender joined as its Artistic Director.
Shaghayegh Cyrous (Persian: شقایق سیروس; is an American artist and curator based in Los Angeles. Her interactive time-based investigations, participatory projects, and video installations have been said to "create a poetic space for human connections."
African Americans in San Francisco, California, composed just under 6% of the city's total population as of 2019 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, down from 13.4% in 1970. There are about 55,000 people of full or partial black ancestry living within the city. The community began with workers and entrepreneurs of the California Gold Rush in the 19th century, and in the early-to-mid 20th century, grew to include migrant workers with origins in the Southern United States, who worked as railroad workers or service people at shipyards. In the mid-20th century, the African American community in the Fillmore District earned the neighborhood the nickname the "Harlem of the West," referring to New York City's Harlem neighborhood, which is associated with African American culture.