About Me

When I first became interested in theater, I had no idea that I was also passionate about social activism or how those two interests would intersect. When I took English 2 my second semester of freshman year, my professor focused the class around feminist readings. After that class, I knew I was interested in learning more about civil rights movements. Those studies combined with my love for watching theater helped me discover political theater. In particular, a huge influence in my studies and interests has been the work that The Public Theater produces. The Public Theater’s mission states that “The Public has served as an advocate for the theater as an essential cultural force in leading and framing dialogue on important issues of our day.” I feel that this is extremely important; art sparks conversations and works to organize and create activists. I feel it’s extremely important to serve as a catalyst for change, especially in terms of large-scale productions that could be viewed as “controversial.” Theater should always be pushing the envelope, reinventing itself, and discussing contemporary issues.

An initiative that I am very interested in exploring, due to a personal connection to it, is the “Mobile Shakespeare Unit” at The Public Theater. Each year, the company produces a scaled down production of a Shakespeare play and tours it around to the prisons, community centers and under privileged neighborhoods. This program is based on their original goal for the company, that producer Joseph Papp envisioned. He strived to create and bring accessible political theater to the New York community. However, I want to find out if these productions affect the people whom they perform for? If so, how? Does this peak their interest in theater or social issues? Can people of different ethnicities, ages, classes, and races really understand and connect with Shakespeare, who wrote during Elizabethan England (clearly very different from modern day)? Secondly, I’m interested in exploring how audiences and artists feel about the state of political theater is today. Are there small and big non-profit theater companies who are producing works that facilitate conversation? Also, can commercial theater serve any of these needs?

When I first read Angels in America by Tony Kushner in High School, I had never before encountered a more important piece of drama. Even though written in the 1980’s, I connected so deeply with its language, storytelling and characters. That sparked my interested in theater as social activism. Tony Kushner’s story was important to its time but it’s also universal, meaning still a very important play today. It’s a powerful piece, which has strong opinions and visuals about the AIDS crisis, sexual identity and America as a country. I have never read such a truthful portrayal of all of those issues. Theater can often serve as a vehicle for marginalized groups to voice their concerns about the society that oppresses them.

The role I plan to take as a writer is as an activist, facilitator and explorer. I want to educate my readers about the history of political theater/theater of the oppressed, present the state of the initiative in the current community, and interview those involved to see how they feel about it’s past, present and future. My imagined readers are people who connect with exciting and important social issues. The only expectations I have for my readers are that they will be open minded and understanding. They do not have to have any sort of theater background, or even understand its history. My hope is that with more knowledge, those who are passionate about social change will want to become more proactive in creating art, which reaches out to large groups of people.