Wellness – Creative Minds Out Loud

Episode 115: Decreasing Stigma Around Addiction and Recovery

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 110: Prescribing Cultural Engagement as a Protective, Healthy Habit

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Dr. Deborah Buccino and Adrien Conklin, BSN RN of MACONY Pediatrics discuss the addition of social prescription – prescribing cultural engagement as a protective, healthy habit – to their collaborative care work in the Berkshires.

“We can give prescriptions for medicine. We can give prescriptions to see a neurologist. But we can also give a prescription for something fun to do with your family. And that’s just as important as some medicines or referrals,” Conklin said.

Dr. Buccino said their participation in CultureRx social prescription has also meant getting to know patients more as people, instead of just their physical bodies. “It does a lot to combat physician burnout.”

Dr. Deborah Buccino and Adrien Conklin Deborah Buccino, MD is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Medical School. Since completing a residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital in 1996, she has practiced general pediatrics at MACONY Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Dr. Buccino is an Instructor of Pediatrics at Boston University Medical School. Dr. Buccino is a school physician at Berkshire School and previously at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.

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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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