Theater – Creative Minds Out Loud

Episode 115: Decreasing Stigma Around Addiction and Recovery

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Improbable Players uses theater performances and workshops to address addiction, alcoholism, and the opioid epidemic. The troupe is comprised of actors who are themselves in recovery from substance addiction. Their former Executive Director Andy Short shares what it means to do destigmatizing and prevention work in schools.

“Theater people, we love to believe that the theater changes the world. And oh, it does,” he says.

Andy Short grew up just outside Boston and sadly did not inherit the wicked Boston accents of his parents. He graduated with a degree in Theatre Education from Emerson College. He has spent his career working at the intersection of education, theatre, and addiction. Was the Executive Director of Improbable Players -a theatre company that hires actors in recovery to perform plays about addiction in schools.

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Episode 109: To Change an Org’s Culture, Rip Off the Band-Aid

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Last November, we spoke with Michael J. Bobbitt, Artistic Director of New Repertory Theatre, about approaching major change in an organization. He shares ways to identify organizational culture, support staff work/life balance, and keep a board focused.

Michael Bobbitt. Photo: DJ Corey Michael J. Bobbitt is the Artistic Director of New Repertory Theatre. He is an arts leader, director, choreographer, and playwright. Prior to New Rep, he served as Artistic Director for Adventure Theatre-MTC in Maryland, where he led the organization to be a respected theatre/training company in the DC region and a nationally influential professional Theatre for Young Audiences.

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Episode 96: When Well-Being Takes the Stage

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Mandy Precious, Engagement and Learning Director at Theatre Royal Plymouth, shares how social prescription – prescribing the arts or arts activities over medication – has impacted their organization and their community. Through their Our Space program, adults with addiction, homelessness, and/or mental health issues come to see productions and make their own work.

Mandy Precious is the Director of Engagement and Learning at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, UK. Previously she was the CEO and Artistic Director of the largest Youth Theatre in England. She was a freelance theatre maker, writer and project manager for 18 years working with communities from all backgrounds. Her work focuses on applied and community theatre, co-creating work with groups least likely to engage but often with the most interesting stories to tell.

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Episode 95: The Arts Sector in the Age of Climate Change

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Vijay Mathew, Cultural Strategist and Co-Founder of HowlRound Theater Commons, discusses the impact of climate change on the field of arts and culture, and what a transition to a post-carbon arts sector may entail.

Vijay Mathew (he/him/his) is the Cultural Strategist and a co-founder of HowlRound Theatre Commons, based at Emerson College, Boston, USA. He is privileged to assist a talented team by leading HowlRound’s development of commons-based online knowledge sharing platforms and the organization’s notions of cultural innovation. Prior to his current position, he was the Coordinator for the National Endowment for the Arts (USA) New Play Development Program, as well as a Theater Communication Group (USA) New Generations Future Leader grant recipient in new work at Arena Stage in Washington, DC.

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Episode 82: The ART of Taking Risks

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The American Repertory Theater’s Diane Paulus and Diane Borger share how they think about risk, and what it means to have “high tolerance for disequilibrium” that permeates the entire culture of an organization. By experimenting with doing things differently, they say artists and arts organizations actually develop muscle and an ability to stay afloat in “risky water.”

Photos of A.R.T. Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director Diane Paulus (r) and A.R.T. Executive Producer Diane Borger (l). Paulus' image by Susan Lapides. Diane Paulus is the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University. A.R.T. directing credits include ExtraOrdinary, Jagged Little Pill (beginning on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre in November 2019), The White Card, In the Body of the World, Waitress (currently on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, on US national tour, and in London’s West End), Crossing, Finding Neverland, Witness Uganda, Pippin (Tony Award, Best Revival and Best Director; opening June 2019 in Tokyo, Japan), The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (Tony Award, Best Revival; NAACP Award, Best Direction), Prometheus Bound, Death and the Powers: The Robots’ Opera, Best of Both Worlds, and The Donkey Show. Continue reading “Episode 82: The ART of Taking Risks”