Listen · Learn · Lead
Antiracism in TYA Webinar Series
Join TYA/USA, in partnership with Arts in Color, in a national conversation on addressing the racism and oppression that impacts the entire TYA industry in personal, professional, and systemic ways.
Are you new to Antiracism work in the TYA field and find yourself in need of direction toward action? Or, are you someone who has been deeply committed to this work, but are now looking to expand your toolbox?
Over the course of an 11-session webinar series we will explore a variety of issues and perspectives regarding the ways artists and organizations can begin to (or further) embed antiracist practice in Theatre for Young Audiences.
In addition to the 11 webinars, participants will be provided with reading materials, resources, follow up questions to deepen their learning, and a Slack Channel for further dialogue. Join colleagues across the country in actively engaging with ways to dismantle racism and white supremacy in the TYA field, and work toward making (or sustaining) meaningful change in creating a truly equitable landscape for our artists, organizations, and our young audiences.
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Register now to participate in the webinar series. The 75-minute sessions took place on Thursdays at 1:30pm Eastern from September 17 to December 17, 2020. They were presented live in webinar format, providing participants with the opportunity to view speakers and submit questions during a live Q & A
If you register after the start of the series, you will immediately gain access to all of the sessions and resources you’ve missed.
Registration gives you access to:
- The Zoom link to attend all 11 sessions live
- The recordings for all sessions, so that you can revisit them or view any sessions you miss.
- Curated discussion questions, readings, and resources to deepen your experience of each session.
- A private Slack channel for participants to dialogue and discuss the content of the sessions in a deeper way in community.
REGISTRATION FEES
TYA/USA wishes to make this series available to as many individuals in the TYA field as possible. Registration is open to TYA/USA members and non-members. If you are not a member of TYA/USA, we encourage you to become one as part of your registration for the series, as your support ensures our ability to continue to provide the national TYA community with vital resources during this challenging time.
For the LISTEN, LEARN, LEAD Series, TYA/USA is offering on a “pay what you can” sliding scale fee. The suggested registration fee is $100, which amounts to less than $10 per session. We are also offering an “Access for All” option so that no one is turned away from participating in the series regardless of their ability to pay. All fees will go directly to compensate the speakers for their time, preparation, and expertise.
The website will prompt you to either log in to your TYA member account, or create an account using your name and email address, in order to register. If you have problems accessing your account, please contact us at info@tyausa.org.
Questions? Contact info@tyausa.org.
Featured Speakers
Learn more about the dynamic speakers and presenters who will lead sessions on a variety of topics exploring Antiracism in Theatre for Young Audiences.
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Shavanna Calder
Co-Producer & Co-Host / Founder, Arts in Color
Shavanna Calder
Equity & Diversity Strategist
actor, writer, creative director, stylist, humanShavanna holds a Master’s Degree from NYU and also received her BA from Wellesley College where she studied Sociology & Cinema and Media Studies. She has worked with individuals on their Equity & Diversity journey as well as companies/organizations such as Stage Door Experience, Trusty Sidekick and Innovative Voice Studio. She is first generation and still identifies as a sociologist at heart.
Shavanna is also the editor of Arts in Color (a site about people of color in theatre), which she started in 2012. The Arts in Color team shared auditions, history, news, celebrated showcasing seniors and much more. Additionally she is the Creative Director of Mujer! (a feminist fashion magazine that defies partiarchal definitions of beauty). Whilst doing all of this she also worked full time at NYU, in various departments, for 7.5 years.
As a performer she recently completed a run of The Legend of Georgia McBride at Milwaukee Rep & Arizona Theatre Company. Other favorite credits include: HBO’s Los Espookys, SNL, Grammys (2018), Hairspray (National Tour), CBS ‘Best of’ Diversity Sketch Comedy Showcase, For Colored Girls (Lady in Green), Caroline, or Change (Emmie). Additionally, she is the fortunate recipient of UCB’s Diversity Scholarship where she studied improv 101 and 201.
Proud Member of Actors Equity Association.
www.shavannacalder.com
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Takiema Bunche Smith
Speaker - Session 1 & 2: Laying the Groundwork
Takiema Bunche Smith, MPA, MS Ed
President and Founder of Anahsa ConsultingTakiema Bunche Smith has worked as an executive leader, education professional, and parent activist, for over two decades. By providing culturally responsive leadership at the intersection of theory, policy and practice, she envisions and builds a culture of anti-oppression and racial equity for children, adults and communities at large.
As a leader in early and middle childhood education, she has conducted professional development, program advisement and executive coaching to a variety of non-profit and corporate clients across the United States and Sweden, including Carnegie Hall, New York City’s Department of Health and Jonkoping University. In her staff role, she is currently Executive Director, Center on Culture, Race and Equity at Bank Street College and has worked at the executive level for a variety of organizations including Sesame Workshop, FirstStepNYC Early Education Leadership Institute and University Settlement Society.
In her role as president of Anahsa Educational Consulting, Takiema is a highly sought after speaker, panelist and lecturer on the topics of anti-racism, disrupting anti-Black racism in education, culturally responsive and sustaining practices, and parent and community empowerment, and has written numerous articles for outlets such as The Washington Post.
Formally trained as a doula and Zumba instructor, Takiema is passionate about creating a culture of radical self-care, particularly as it relates to professional environments. She also leads weekly wellness meetings, called Humanity First Chats for working caregivers across the country to connect and reflect on dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy in their own lives, and the lives of their children and communities.
She holds three Master’s degrees in Early Childhood & Elementary Education from Bank Street College of Education, Urban Education Policy from the CUNY Graduate Center, and from NYU Wagner’s School for Public Service.
Takiema lives in Brooklyn, New York and is spending a lot of time figuring out how to support her teenager in self-directed learning projects, while she works remotely during a global pandemic. She knows she is not alone in this!
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Jody Drezner Alperin
Speaker - Session 1 & 2: Laying the Groundwork
Jody Drezner Alperin is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Off The Page, an arts education and theatre company. Off The Page works with young people in and outside of school, exploring issues they are most passionate about and creating new works of theatre with them and for them.
Off The Page collaborated with playwright Finnegan Kruckemeyer and youth artists, many of them immigrants themselves, to create A SONG TO BRING YOU HOME, a story of migrants from ten different places in the world through time, including a space alien from the future.
They are the adapters of ALL AMERICAN BOYS, based on the award-winning novel by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, which explores the violent arrest of a Black teenager, the white teenager who witnesses it, and how the arrest impacts their communities over the course of a week. Off The Page has staged ALL AMERICAN BOYS as an immersive, promenade production in a Brooklyn middle school, as a reading in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA, as a radio play at New York Public Radio, and as the opening performance of the TYA/USA National Festival & Conference, produced by The Alliance Theatre. Their script is now available for license through Playscripts.
They recently wrapped the first season of Missing From the Museum, an audience-driven family adventure series that combines interactive online performances with exploring art, artists, and museums in real life. This was an historic, cross-country collaboration between Off The Page, Brave Little Company (Houston, TX), Trike Theatre (NW Arkansas), and Dare to Dream Theatre (Manitowoc/Sheboygan, WI).
Currently, they are developing their adaptation of Kip Wilson’s WHITE ROSE, the true story of student resistance in 1940’s Germany when Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and their university friends wrote and distributed treasonous leaflets, urging their fellow Germans to resist the Nazi regime.
Off The Page is the recipient of multiple grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Community Foundation, Chipstone Foundation shatterCABINET, and are 2019-20 New Victory LabWorks Artists.
Jody has been a guest lecturer at colleges and universities on using arts education methods in the classroom and a presenter at conferences across the country. She is also an organizer and activist, working on issues of education equity in NYC schools and racial justice within our systems,
Jody is a graduate of Northwestern University in theatre and has been seen as an actor on stages all over the US. Jody was a sign language interpreter for many years, working in the NYC public schools. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Brad and their two children, Dov and Zoe, all of whom have been in early table reads of these plays.
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Stephanie Ybarra
Speaker - Session 3: Embedding Antiracism In Theatre Organizations Fieldwide
Stephanie Ybarra began her tenure as Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage in 2018 after serving seven years as Director of Special Artistic Projects for The Public Theater in New York. Her career spans over two decades and includes roles at Dallas Children’s Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Yale Repertory Theater, Two River Theater Company, and Playwrights Realm. Recent awards and honors include the 2018 Nation Builder Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators as well as being counted among the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 2019 YBCA 100. She is on faculty at The Juilliard School and serves on the boards of The Make Believe Association and Citizen University. Stephanie holds an MFA from Yale School of Drama.
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Jacob Padrón
Speaker - Session 3: Embedding Antiracism In Theatre Organizations Fieldwide
Jacob G. Padrón (he/him/his) is the Artistic Director of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. He is also the Founder and Artistic Director of The Sol Project, a national theater initiative that works in partnership with leading theater companies to amplify the voices of Latinx playwrights in New York City and beyond. Padrón has held senior-level artistic positions at theater companies across the country. He was the Senior Line Producer at The Public Theater where he worked on new plays, new musicals, Shakespeare in the Park, and Public Works. He was formerly the Producer at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago where he oversaw the artistic programming in the Garage – Steppenwolf’s dedicated space for new work, new artists, and new audiences. From 2008 to 2011, he was an Associate Producer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he was instrumental in producing all shows in the 11-play repertory. Under the guidance of his late mentor Diane Rodriguez, he served as the producer of Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays for Center Theatre Group, a collaboration that included over 50 theater companies to launch Festival 365 in Los Angeles. He is currently on the faculty at Yale School of Drama where he teaches artistic producing in the graduate theater management program. He is also a co-founder of the Artist Anti-Racism Coalition, a grassroots movement committed to dismantling structural racism within the Off-Broadway community. Originally from the central coast of California, Jacob holds degrees from Loyola Marymount University (BA) and Yale School of Drama (MFA).
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Michael J. Bobbitt
Speaker - Session 4: Building an EDIJ Action Plan for Theatre Organizations
Michael J. Bobbitt is the Artistic Director of New Repertory Theatre in Boston, MA. He is an arts leader, director, choreographer, playwright and Anti-racist Arts Advocate.
Michael has been a leading voice for Inclusiveness in the arts beginning early in his career in his hometown of Washington, DC, and throughout his tenure at numerous prominent arts organizations, where he has been repeatedly recognized for his efforts in the advancement of Anti-racism, Equity, and Diversity. His practices, policies and procedures for creating and changing culture within arts organizations have been adopted by several organizations around the nation. His thought-leadership in this crucial area is now spreading to a number of national outlets including regional panels, national conferences, and his widely popular new series of webinars focused on building Anti-racist organizations.
In his first year at New Rep, Michael eradicated the debt, built three several months of reserves, increased ticket sales by 43%, donations by 24%, patronage by 26% and Board giving exceeded goal by 57%. Additionally, he has made New Rep into a leading voice on building Anti-racist theatre.
Prior to New Rep, he served as Artistic Director for Adventure Theatre-MTC in Maryland, where he led the historic organization to be one of the leading theatre/training companies in the DC region and a nationally influential professional Theatre for Young Audiences. He led the company through a merger, that increased the organizational budget by more than 600%, and led directly to an expansion of the audience base by over 400%. During his tenure, he commissioned 40 new works by noted playwrights, transferred two shows to successful Off-Broadway run in NYC, and oversaw the launch of an international tour that brought worldwide attention to Adventure Theatre-MTC. Michael founded and built a performing arts training academy for school-aged students in the Washington, DC area that became an important resource for young artists in a region where public school arts programs had been sacrificed in the name of cost-cutting. His productions received dozens of Helen Hayes Award© Nominations and featured eight wins.
Bobbitt has directed/choreographed at Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Olney Theatre Center, Studio Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Center Stage, Roundhouse Theatre, The Kennedy Center, and the Washington National Opera. His national and international credits include the NY Musical Theatre Festival, Mel Tillis 2001, La Jolla Playhouse, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, Jefferson Performing Arts Center, and the 1996 Olympics.
As a writer, his work has been produced all over the country and international. He has plays published by Concord Theatricals, Plays for Young Audiences and Broadway Licensing. He trained at Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management, The National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program, Professional Fundraising Certificate Program from Boston University, Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell, artEquity and People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, and other top leadership programs. He earned the Excel Leadership Award (Center for Nonprofit Advancement) the Emerging Leader Award (County Executive’s Excellence in the Arts and Humanities), and Person of the Year Award (Maryland Theatre Guide), among others.
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Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
Speaker - Session 5: Racism and the Need for Diversity in the Canon of Stories for Children
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas is Associate Professor in the Literacy, Culture, and International Educational Division at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. A former Detroit Public Schools teacher and National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, she was a member of the NCTE Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color’s 2008-2010 cohort, served on the NCTE Conference on English Education’s Executive Committee from 2013 until 2017, and is the immediate past chair of the NCTE Standing Committee on Research. Currently, she serves as co-editor of Research of the Teaching of English, and her most recent book is The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (NYU Press, 2019).
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Philip Nel
Speaker - Session 5: Racism and the Need for Diversity in the Canon of Stories for Children
Philip Nel is University Distinguished Professor of English at Kansas State University. He is the author or co-editor of eleven books, including Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books (2017), three volumes of Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby (co-edited with Eric Reynolds, 2013, 2014, 2016), a double biography of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss (2012), Keywords for Children’s Literature (co-edited with Lissa Paul, 2011), and Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature (co-edited with Julia Mickenberg, 2008). Forthcoming: second edition of Keywords for Children’s Literature (co-edited with Lissa Paul and Nina Christensen, 2021) and fourth volume of Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby (co-edited with Reynolds, 2020). He blogs at Nine Kinds of Pie <http://www.philnel.com/>, and tweets as @philnel.
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Sarah Park Dahlen
Speaker - Session 5: Racism and the Need for Diversity in the Canon of Stories for Children
Sarah Park Dahlen is an Associate Professor in the Master of Library and Information Science Program at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. A graduate of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Department, she earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She co-founded and co-edits Research on Diversity in Youth Literature with Gabrielle Halko, co-edited Diversity in Youth Literature with Jamie Campbell Naidoo, and co-edited the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly’s Special Issue on Orphanhood and Adoption in Children’s Literature with Lies Wesseling. Her next books address race in the wizarding world with Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Asian American youth literature with Paul Lai. sarahpark.com @readingspark
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Victor Vazquez
Speaker - Session 6: Antiracist Casting Practices
Victor Vazquez, CSA is the founder of X Casting NYC. Current new-play and new-musical projects include: The Royal Court Theatre in London’s West End, The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, Dramatists Guild, WP Theatre NYC Pipeline Festival, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, The Alliance Theater, The Kennedy Center.
Previously, he served as resident Casting Director at Arena Stage for three seasons, overseeing the casting of over 25 productions and over 26 new play/musical workshops. He has auditioned thousands of actors, and cast over 500 actors in professional plays and musicals in such theatre’s as A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco), Seattle Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and London’s West End. He has held casting calls in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, the SF Bay Area, and Washington D.C. He now lives in New York City with his partner Bryan.
Victor holds a master’s degree (with distinction) from the University of Oxford. He is the proud son of Mexican immigrants. Spanish is his first language. Victor is a member of the Casting Society of America, and a 2020 Theater Communications Group (TCG) Rising Leader of Color.
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Khalia Davis
Speaker - Session 6: Antiracist Casting Practices
Khalia Davis (she/her) is a bicoastal multidisciplinary artist splitting her time between the San Francisco/Bay Area and New York. Directed and devised new works with prominent theaters such as Bay Area Children’s Theater, Atlantic Theater Company’s Atlantic for Kids, New York City Children’s Theater, Spellbound Theatre and more. Ms. Davis recently served as the Director of Inclusion and Education with Brooklyn Children’s Theatre restructuring their children’s musical theater programming through an anti-racism lens and taught with New York City Children’s Theater, the Atlantic Acting School, and for Disney Theatrical Group leading music and movement workshops and facilitating audience and community engagement. She also served as an Artistic Associate for the nationally-known arts education organization The Story Pirates. As a performer, she has worked regionally and toured nationally on both coasts. Recently named the Artistic Director of Bay Area Children’s Theatre and awarded the 2019 Emerging Leader Fellowship with TYA/USA and the NYCCT Leader Fellowship for 2019/2020. BA in Theater Arts from the University of Southern California. To learn more about Ms. Davis, check her out at www.khaliadavis.com!
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Amelia Brown
Speaker - Session 7: Racism as a Public Health Emergency
Amelia Brown is an artist, coach, consultant, writer and speaker with more than 20 years of community development experience spanning four continents. She earned the first and only self-designed master’s degree from the University of Minnesota integrating arts, emergency management and community development. She managed the first Twin Cities placemaking residency and was a key player in the development of the cultural corridor along the St. Paul light rail with Twin Cities LISC. Amelia’s presentations and articles have been the first to focus on the role of arts in disaster recovery and have been seen in multiple publications, conferences and locations from New Orleans to New Zealand. In partnership with Springboard for the Arts, she developed the first Community Emergency Relief Fund to support artistic responses to urgent community needs. As the program manager for Creative CityMaking, she has implemented the first program in the City of Minneapolis that partners artists with City staff to work on addressing the City’s equity goals. Amelia sits on the national cabinet of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, she is board chair of Springboard of the Arts, and she is an adjunct professor in leadership at the University of Minnesota. She created Emergency Arts to transform crisis through creativity and is currently focused on addressing the public health emergency of racism.
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James Miles
Speaker - Session 8: The Activist Teaching Artist
James Miles worked as an educator in the New York City public schools for almost 20 years before joining the Seattle-based Arts Corps as Executive Director. Originally from Chicago, Miles has worked internationally as an artist and educator, who was inspired to foment change after seeing so many children that looked like him, get disregarded and treated like criminals by our educational systems. Miles is a Mayoral Appointee to the Seattle Arts Commission, and on the advisory board of SXSW EDU. His acclaimed TedXTalk focuses on his mission is to narrow achievement gaps using the arts as a tool to navigate inequitable educational systems. A former accountant, model, and actor, Miles has facilitated workshops and designed curriculum for the New Victory Theater, Roundabout Theatre, Disney Theatrical Group, Village Theatre, Arts Impact, Denver Center, Impact Schools, and others. Previously a professor at NYU, James taught a myriad of classes, ranging from Acting and Directing to EdTech and Special Education. A graduate of Morehouse College and Brandeis University, James has presented at SXSW EDU, NYU’s IMPACT Festival, New York Creative Tech Week, EdTechXEurope, Google Educator Bootcamp, UAEM North America, UAEM Europe, National Guild, ITAC, and provided professional development to teachers across the world. His work has been featured by Pie News, New Profit, Complex Magazine, National Guild, Seattle Times, KOMO, NPR, CBS, NBC, US Department of Education, and ASCD. He is the co-founder of LeadersDontLead.com, a leadership coaching agency. Learn more about James Miles and his work at www.freshprofessor.com
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Greg Thornton
Speaker - Session 8: The Activist Teaching Artist
Artist-activist Greg Thornton lives in Seattle, Washington. He is a visual artist and has worked as a teaching artist for the past nine years in collaboration with Arts Corps, Seattle Public Schools, Center for Children and Youth Justice, and The Vera Project, among other local schools and organizations. Greg’s visual arts lesson plans encourage and inspire his students to engage in self-expression and allow a space for his students to tell their truth through art. Greg’s classrooms provide a safe place for students to focus on their own growth and identity in a nonjudgmental setting. In addition to being a full-time teaching artist, Greg runs a small business called Black Iconic T-Shirts, which produces t-shirts that celebrate important individuals in black culture and history by combining portraits with Hello My Name Is… tags that invite the viewer into each person’s life and accomplishments. www.blackiconictshirts.com
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Mary Kathryn Nagle
Speaker - Session 9: Honoring Native Stories and Acknowledging Indigenous Identities in TYA
Mary Kathryn Nagle is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is also a partner at Pipestem Law, P.C., where she works to protect tribal sovereignty and the inherent right of Indian Nations to protect their women and children from domestic violence and sexual assault. From 2015 to 2019, she served as the first Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. Nagle is an alum of the 2013 Public Theater Emerging Writers Program. Productions include Miss Lead (Amerinda, 59E59), Fairly Traceable (Native Voices at the Autry), Sovereignty (Arena Stage), Manahatta (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Return to Niobrara (Rose Theater), and Crossing Mnisose (Portland Center Stage), Sovereignty (Marin Theatre Company), and Manahatta (Yale Repertory Theatre). She has received commissions from Arena Stage, the Rose Theater (Omaha, Nebraska), Portland Center Stage, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Yale Repertory Theatre, Round House Theater, and Oregon Shakespeare Theater.
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DeLanna Studi
Speaker - Session 9: Honoring Native Stories and Acknowledging Indigenous Identities in TYA
DeLanna Studi is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is an actor/playwright whose TV credits include “Dreamkeeper”, “Edge of America”, “Shameless”, “General Hospital”, “Z Nation”, and the recent season of “Goliath”. Her theater credits include the First National Broadway Tour of “August: Osage County”, Off-Broadway’s “Gloria: A Life”. She retraced her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears with her father and created her play “And So We Walked” which has been touring for the last three years. She is the Chair of SAG-AFTRA’s National Native Americans Committee and the Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry, the country’s only Equity theatre company devoted exclusively to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights.
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Ty Defoe
Speaker - Session 9: Honoring Native Stories and Acknowledging Indigenous Identities in TYA
Ty Defoe (Giizhig), Oneida + Ojibwe Nations, is an interdisciplinary artist, writer/actor, director, and Grammy Award winner. Ty’s has an integral approach to artistic projects pulling in social justice messages rooted through words, music, literature, theatre, film. Awards: Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence, Jonathan Larson Award. Works created: Red Pine, The Way They Lived, Ajijaak on Turtle Island, Hear Me Say My Name. All My Relations Collective—(DTWG, Public Theater, GIZHIBAA GIIZHIG | Revolving Sky at Under the Radar’s Incoming!). Movement Director: Mother Road, Dir. Bill Rauch (OSF), Manahatta, Dir. Laurie Woolery (OSF + Yale Rep), Choreographer for Tracy Lett’s, The Minutes (Broadway). Netflix Appearance: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Broadway: Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, Dir. Anna Shapiro. Degrees: CalArts, Goddard College, + NYU Tisch. Lives in NYC, loves the color clear. He|We| tydefoe.com
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Kenny Ramos
Speaker - Session 9: Honoring Native Stories and Acknowledging Indigenous Identities in TYA
Kenny Ramos (Barona Band of Mission Indians, Kumeyaay Nation) grew up on the Barona Indian Reservation and holds a BA in American Indian Studies from UCLA. He is an ensemble member at Cornerstone Theater Company and Native Voices at the Autry and has also performed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Kennedy Center, South Dakota Shakespeare Festival, Passage Theatre, and the Denver Center Theatre Company. Specific highlights include the world premiere productions of Larissa FastHorse’s Urban Rez (Cornerstone Theater Company) and Native Nation (Cornerstone/ASU Gammage), Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Return to Niobrara (Rose Theater Omaha), and Vera Starbard’s Devilfish (Perseverance Theatre). Kenny is a recipient of First Peoples Fund’s Cultural Capital Fellowship and is the first Native American to receive Theatre Communications Group’s Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship. He is passionate about theatre that centers Native perspectives and challenges settler colonial realities of American society, and outside of theater, Kenny is actively involved with language revitalization efforts and two spirit advocacy within his own tribal community.
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Larry Wright Jr.
Speaker - Session 9: Honoring Native Stories and Acknowledging Indigenous Identities in TYA
Larry Wright Jr. is the current Tribal Chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. He was recently elected to his 4th four year term. He also serves the Area Vice-President for the Great Plains Region on the NCAI Board of Directors and is the Acting Chairman of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs.
With a background in education and management, Wright brings extensive knowledge of tribal sovereignty issues that afflict Indian Country today. He has been a High School Social Studies Teacher and owns a General Contracting business. He is also a veteran.
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Terina-Jasmine (TJ) Alladin
Speaker - Session 10: Decentering Whiteness in Touring & Presenting TYA
Terina-Jasmine (TJ) Alladin (she/her/hers) focuses her professional efforts on uplifting womxn, girls of color, immigrants, and individuals with disabilities. TJ is the Managing Director of IPAY, the primary organization that supports international touring in the performing arts for young audiences industry. In addition to IPAY, TJ works as a Consultant in the arts, science, and technology industries. She works as a Consultant for technical companies to strategically invest in, recruit, retain, and advance womxn through industry and entrepreneurial careers in technology. She recently secured her Ethical Hacker certification is working toward further qualifications in cybersecurity, cyberpolicy, and cyberjustice. TJ also worked at the Boston Ballet, where she managed school-based arts programs and taught in the world-renowned Adaptive Dance Program, which provides high-caliber dance instruction to youth and adults with Down syndrome and/or Autism Spectrum Disorders.TJ received her MSc in Dance Science from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in the United Kingdom, the world’s foremost center for research in dance science. There, she studied statistics, physiology, biomechanics, and contemporary dance. TJ is a Philadelphia resident from Brooklyn, New York with a rich heritage from Indo- and Afro-Guyana.
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Jacqueline Handy
Speaker - Session 10: Decentering Whiteness in Touring & Presenting TYA
“What’s in a name?” Though called sometimes by “Jacqueline” and other times by “Jackie,” the names of Jacqueline Handy stand as testament to her singular ability to flow professional and familiar. In this, her fifth year serving school and family audiences at Lincoln Center Education, Jacqueline is building community within Lincoln Center while building support for its artistic offerings around the City. In her current role as Programming Manager, Jacqueline continues her bridge-building as a scout for up and coming ensembles, keen on extending dance, music and theatre performance opportunities to young and artistically underserved audiences. So, what’s in name? That which we call Jacqueline Handy, by Jacqueline, Jackie, or any other name, would be as collaborative?
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Rosa Hyde
Speaker - Session 10: Decentering Whiteness in Touring & Presenting TYA
Rosa Hyde has a twenty-year career in the arts spanning the administrative, performance and teaching worlds. Currently Rosa is Director, Arts Education Performances for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), curating and producing events for the Arts Education department, including curation of a robust Schooltime Series and management and oversight of 12 rehearsal studios.
Previously Rosa served as the first House Manager for the Concerts and Lectures Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City creating and implementing a structural plan to overhaul Front of House and Company Management operations, wrote a new employee manual documenting the 100+ year history of the department, logistical planning and execution of approximately 250 Museum events occurring in traditional and non-traditional performance spaces and galleries. Rosa served as Performance Manager for Frederick P. Rose Hall, the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center from 2004-2011. Along with this experience, Rosa has worked as a consultant for two Off-Broadway venues, United Palace of Cultural Arts, a 3000 – seat venue in Washington Heights and Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, a 200 – seat Dance space specializing in building infrastructure for their Front of House, Operations and Ticketing departments.
Aside from her administrative work, Rosa has a deep love and appreciation for the arts as a writer, jazz singer and teaching artist performing at a variety of venues around New York City; has taught and performed spoken word poetry at festivals and events in her familial homeland of Belize, through the Ministry of Arts and Culture and the George C. Price Presidential Library in Belmopan, Belize, Central America.
Rosa is on the Board of Directors for International Performing Arts for Youth (IPAY), an alumna of the 2018 Community Arts Education Leadership Institute through the National Guild for Community Arts Education; she also holds a Certificate from the Victoria Foundation Emerging Leaders Program through Rutgers University, Newark; a Master’s degree in Educational Theater from NYU and a Bachelor’s degree in Theater from Oberlin College.
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Sophie Myrtil-McCourty
Speaker - Session 10: Decentering Whiteness in Touring & Presenting TYA
Sophie Myrtil-McCourty founded Lotus Arts Management in July 2014. She is originally from Paris, France, where she graduated from a translation and interpretation school in the French, English and German languages. After college, Sophie worked in Paris as a freelance translator. She has always enjoyed the performing arts world, particularly dance, which she has practiced as an amateur for many years. Additionally, her sister is a dancer/choreographer in Paris and Sophie has frequently helped her with her administrative work and international booking. In 1998, Sophie moved to NYC and started working for Marlies Yearby first as her personal assistant, then as the administrator of her dance company, Movin’ Spirits Dance Theater. In October 2000, she joined the staff of Pentacle as the Administrator of the Help Desk program. As she also enjoyed booking other artists on the side, Sophie was promoted to join the Pentacle booking department in July 2004. She became the Director of the Department in 2008 and worked with an eclectic roster of six companies until June 2014. Sophie has served on several panels including Dance Theater Workshop’s Fresh Tracks. She was on the committee of the 2015 Wassaic Festival and sat on the board of Tennessee Presenters for a couple of years. She was also an Advisory Council Member of the Field Leadership Fund, which is based on the premise that advancements in diversity among leadership will lead to a more equitable arts sector in New York City and beyond.
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Jairo Ontiveros
Speaker - Session 10: Decentering Whiteness in Touring & Presenting TYA
Jairo Ontiveros is the Vice President of Arts Education and Community Engagement at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, where he oversees a multifaceted portfolio of programs that engage more than 65,000 K-12 students and adult learners a year in meaningful arts learning experiences. His work focuses on outreach and engagement with populations traditionally underserved by the arts. Under his supervision, the Arsht Center’s programs have achieved national recognition, including AileyCamp Miami, which received the 2016 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the nation’s highest honor for out-of-school creative youth development programs. Ontiveros has served the National Endowment for the Arts on its Arts Education Panel for Multidisciplinary Arts. He is a member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures.
Ontiveros has more than 15 years of experience delivering fine arts programming to communities. Born in Aguascalientes, in northern Mexico, he was raised in North Texas and is fluent in Spanish and English. Ontiveros holds two degrees – a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance and a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Latin American Studies – from the University of Texas, Austin. He has studied theory of cinema at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He also is trained in ADA/504 compliance.
From 2001 to 2005, Ontiveros was a principal dancer and, later, a coordinator for community projects with the Austin-based Aztlan Dance Company, which promotes intercultural, cross-generational understanding and an appreciation of Indio/Latino/Xicano dance arts. From 2006 to 2007, Ontiveros completed a Texas Performing Arts Management Fellowship in programming and education at the University of Texas-Austin, where he was instrumental in increasing the performing arts organization’s presence in the Austin community and the Austin and Del Valle Independent School Districts. During this time, he also produced a summer folk music concert series in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to raise funds to support the Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, the state’s oldest crafts school.
In 2007, Ontiveros joined the Adrienne Arsht Center, where he supervises such cornerstone education programs as Learning Through the Arts, an arts integration initiative that reaches all fifth and seventh-graders in Miami-Dade County Public Schools with live theater; Jazz Roots Sound Check, which provides high school music students behind-the-scenes interaction with the world’s finest jazz musicians; Accessing the Arts, a residency program that sends teaching artists into public schools to promote music, movement and theater learning among students with disabilities; and AileyCamp Miami, a summer camp for middle school students held in cooperation with the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. Along with master classes and teaching residencies led by visiting artists, Ontiveros produces free family friendly performances every year to connect young families to the performing arts. The effort has drawn a new generation to the Arsht Center and earned a “Kids Crown Award” from South Florida Parenting magazine.
Ontiveros currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Pioneer Winter Collective and International Performing Arts for Youth. In 2014, he was the recipient of the “40 under 40” South Florida Business Journal award for his work in bridging the arts and the business sector.
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Shavonne T. Coleman
Speaker - Session 11: Next Steps
Shavonne Coleman (she/her/they) is a teaching & performing artist, writer, and educator who currently resides in Austin, TX by way Detroit, MI. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Grand Valley State University (07’) and a Master of Fine Arts from Eastern Michigan University for Applied Drama/Theatre for the Young (17’) During her time at Eastern she had the amazing opportunity to travel to S. Korea to direct a Youth Theatre performance at the Zoom Theatre in Seoul. In recent years, Ms. Coleman was the Assistant Director of Acting at Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, Visiting Faculty in the Theatre and Dance department at Grand Valley State University, was awarded the 2018 Emerging Leader in Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) Fellowship and remains part of TYA’s Equity Diversity Inclusion task-force. Shavonne is currently the Theatre for Dialogue Specialist at the University of Texas at Austin where she is also Lecturer in Theatre and Dance. Shavonne was awarded a 2019/2020 Undergraduate Teaching Grant for her work with the Theatre for Dialogue course & ensemble.
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Tiffany Maltos
Speaker - Session 11: Next Steps
Tiffany Maltos (she/her) is the Associate Director of Education at Seattle Children’s Theatre. Ms. Maltos is an arts administrator, teaching artist, and Trustee of Theatre Puget Sound. She graduated from Bowdoin College in 2011 with a degree in Interdisciplinary English/Theatre and focus on Theatre for Young Audiences. She received her Teaching Certificate in 2012. A native of San Antonio, TX, Ms. Maltos was the Education Manager at The Magik Theatre and a teaching artist for The Classic Theatre before joining the team at SCT.
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Min Kahng
Speaker - Session 11: Next Steps
Min Kahng is an award-winning Bay Area playwright and composer whose world premiere works include The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga (recipient of the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for Original Script and Original Music, the Edgerton New Play Award, and a NAMT Production Grant) and The Song of the Nightingale. His TYA credits include GOLD: The Midas Musical, Inside Out & Back Again, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon: A Musical Adaptation, Bad Kitty On Stage!, and Tales of Olympus. Kahng also wrote the NEA-funded project Story Explorers, an original musical for young audiences with autism. Kahng has participated in the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, a residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s The Ground Floor Summer Lab, and the TheatreWorks New Works Festival. He has been invited as a Guest Lecturer/Artist at Harvard University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, San Jose State University and The San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Kahng is a Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist, a Richard Rodgers Award Finalist, a Resident Playwright at Playwrights Foundation, and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. www.minkahng.com
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Val Ramirez
Speaker - Session 11: Next Steps
Val Ramirez (they/them) is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist, director, deviser, and arts educator. An Arizona State University alumnus, Val’s first artistic home was at Childsplay in Tempe, AZ, where they served as an ensemble member and teaching artist for a number of seasons. Some of their favorite Childsplay projects include The Yellow Boat, Tomas & the Library Lady (national tour), and The Smartest Girl in the World. Val then moved on to the east coast, where they began working as a teaching artist with a focus on devised work with young people that explores personal identity, origins, and worldview. To that end, they facilitated residencies through Ping Chong + Company’s Secret Histories Education program in New Jersey and New York schools. Additionally, Val created and developed the Devised Theatre program, centering the same social justice themes and explorations, for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s YASI: Young Artist Summer Intensive. Most recently, Val served as the Director of Education for The Magik Theatre in San Antonio, TX. Val firmly believes in the transformative power of storytelling, art-making, and theatre for all.
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Marisol Rosa-Shapiro
Speaker - Session 11: Next Steps
Marisol Rosa-Shapiro is a performer, director, teaching artist, clown, group facilitator, and creator of original works of theater. She has recently appeared in THE UP CLOSE FESTIVAL at NYC’s New Ohio Theatre, and in Spellbound Theatre’s SHAKESPEARE’S STARS, WINK, and THE LAST COIN. Marisol is a founding member, performer and writer for ADVENTURE THEATER LIVE!, a company born in March 2020 to create interactive, Zoom-based performances for young people. She is a teaching artist with The New Victory Theater in NYC, and has served in a similar capacity for many theaters and arts orgs across the country, including Seattle Children’s Theater, Seattle Rep, Tectonic Theater Company, TADA! Youth Theater, Arts Impact, CENTRUM, Partners for Youth Empowerment, and Seeds of Peace, among many more. Marisol recently served as Director of Community Engagement for Philadelphia’s Shakespeare in Clark Park, and is a board member for Clowns Without Borders USA, with whom she has completed three projects as a volunteer performer and teacher. She hopes to help build justice, playfulness, imagination, and joy wherever she finds herself. Nuyorican by birth and upbringing. Currently Philadelphia based. She is always learning. www.marisolmakes.com
Schedule
Below you’ll find more information, including dates, times, titles, and description, for each of the 11 Webinar Sessions in the series. You can also download a PDF of the full schedule HERE.
Registered participants can access recordings of the sessions as they become available on the Participant Resources tab of this site.
Bios of all speakers can be found in the Speakers tab of this site.
Laying the Groundwork: Talking about Race and Racism in Our Field & Our Communities (Part I)
How do we talk about race and racism with our colleagues and with the young people we serve? These introductory sessions will support participants to engage with information and frameworks related to race, racism and equity; learn more about how we consider young people in this conversation; provide space for them to reflect on these frameworks from a personal perspective; and recognize how it impacts their professional roles in theatre for young audiences.
Please Note: Part II builds on Part I, so please make sure to sign up for both sessions.
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Takiema Bunche Smith
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Jody Drezner Alperin
Laying the Groundwork: Talking about Race and Racism in Our Field & Our Communities (Part II)
How do we talk about race and racism with our colleagues and with the young people we serve? These introductory sessions will support participants to engage with information and frameworks related to race, racism and equity; learn more about how we consider young people in this conversation; provide space for them to reflect on these frameworks from a personal perspective; and recognize how it impacts their professional roles in theatre for young audiences.
Please Note: Part II builds on Part I, so please make sure to sign up for both sessions.
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Takiema Bunche Smith
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Jody Drezner Alperin
Embedding Antiracism In Theatre Organizations Fieldwide
How do we reimagine the structures and practices of our theatre institutions in bold new ways? This session will explore the ways in which theatre organizations can make tangible structural changes to embed antiracism across the organization’s culture and practices. Inspired by the growing grassroots Antiracism movement across the regional theatre and unpacking the We See You WAT demands document as a foundation, the session will explore coalition-building among arts leaders towards a more equitable and antiracist theatre ecosystem.
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Stephanie Ybarra
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Jacob Padrón
Building an EDIJ Action Plan for Theatre Organizations
How do we create meaningful and specific plans to hold our organizations, especially PWI (Predominantly White Institutions), accountable to change? Inspired by Artistic Director Michael J. Bobbitt’s work at New Repertory Theatre and Adventure Theatre MTC, this session will explore the building blocks of creating an actionable and measurable Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice Plan for Theatre Organizations who want to go beyond making statements to creating meaningful change programmatically, structurally, and culturally.
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Michael J. Bobbitt
Racism and the Need for Diversity in the Canon of Stories for Children
How do we challenge the “classic” stories we tell to children and reimagine the canon itself? Leading Children’s Literature Scholars will explore how the stories we tell shape young people; demonstrate how racism is found throughout the “classic” and contemporary children’s literature; highlight the ways in which protagonists of color are represented in children’s stories; and offer ways to meaningfully diversify the stories we create and tell to young people.
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Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
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Philip Nel
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Sarah Park Dahlen
Antiracist Casting Practices
How do we leave “Color-Blind Casting” behind, moving to models that sensitively and holistically reflect the diversity of our country on our stages? This session will explore issues that arise in casting across the theatre industry, and offer ways to intentionally and responsibly make casting decisions in TYA.
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Victor Vazquez
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Khalia Davis
Racism as a Public Health Emergency
How do we recognize racism as a public health emergency, and take action to support our communities? This session will zoom out beyond the theatre world to focus on the communities we serve, exploring the ways in which racism is a public health emergency. The session will offer ideas on the importance of arts to address this emergency in communities, as well as ways TYA professionals can tangibly respond to the emergency of racism within and outside of the walls of our institutions.
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Amelia Brown
The Activist Teaching Artist
How can an independent teaching artist incorporate their activism into their work in the classroom and in the community? How can embedded activism in teaching artist practice benefit both the organization and the communities they serve? Using the work of Seattle’s Arts Corps in connecting artistry and community action as inspiration, this session will explore the role of the teaching artist through the lens of activism and our current moment.
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James Miles
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Greg Thornton
Honoring Native Stories and Acknowledging Indigenous Identities in TYA
How can non Native TYA institutions honor, represent and collaborate with Native Communities? How can Native Communities benefit from a deeper connection with Theatre for Young Audiences? This session will focus on honoring Native American stories in TYA, and how acknowledgment of indigenous communities and Native land can impact the day-to-day functioning of TYA organizations.
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Mary Kathryn Nagle
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DeLanna Studi
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Ty Defoe
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Kenny Ramos
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Larry Wright Jr.
Decentering Whiteness in Touring & Presenting TYA (Presented in association with IPAY)
How can Presenters, who curate domestic and international performances for young audiences for their local communities, take an active role in reflecting their audiences on stage? How can the Presenting field interrogate the ways that white supremacy can impact notions of “Quality” in aesthetics of TYA? Join a panel of presenters for a roundtable discussion unpacking the challenges and the opportunities for creating a more equitable landscape in touring and presenting TYA in the US.
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Terina-Jasmine (TJ) Alladin
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Jacqueline Handy
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Rosa Hyde
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Sophie Myrtil-McCourty
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Jairo Ontiveros
Next Steps: Reflection, Action, and Accountability
Where do we go from here? Equipped with the tools we’ve developed or deepened over the course of the series, join BIPOC TYA professionals from across the country in a conversation on holding ourselves accountable, creating tangible strategies for change, and collectively moving our field forward.
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Khalia Davis
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Shavonne T. Coleman
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Tiffany Maltos
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Min Kahng
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Val Ramirez
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Marisol Rosa-Shapiro