UCR Professor Teams with Joshua Tree Non-profit to Create Artist Residency Program for Veterans

UCR Today


Charles Evered teams up with the Hi-Desert Cultural Center
By Mojgan Sherkat on April 14, 2017
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The Charles J. Evered House will be an artist residency for veterans.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) – Charles Evered, professor of playwriting at the University of California, Riverside, is seeking to create a special artist’s residency program with a non-profit group in Joshua Tree.
The residency, Charles J. Evered House, is primarily for military veterans who are writers, painters, musicians, and artists of all kinds.  The initiative is being created in partnership with the Hi-Desert Cultural Center.
The residency, Evered said, will also be open to those who served in conflict zones — including war correspondents and combat photographers.
“People who document war are often underpaid, uninsured, and targeted by regimes – living very precarious lives. Our veterans returning home face many challenges as well,” Evered said. “But, maybe if we could provide them with a peaceful and secure place to collect their thoughts for a while, it’ll advance their work and amazing things might come from it. Veterans have incredible stories to tell. To me, they literally are the stories of our times.”
The residence is named after his late father, who was a veteran of World War II. He died in 1979.
“I haven’t had a dad for almost 40 years, but I feel like I talk to him every day. He was a great man, and I want him to live on in some way,” said Evered, who shares his father’s name.
Evered, who is founding artistic director of the Department of Theatre, Film and Digital Production, was himself a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve and his son is entering his fourth year in the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps. His daughter is a junior firefighter in Princeton, N.J. – rounding out three generations of service.






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