Membership Spotlight – September 2024

I am a co-founder of the No Book Bans coalition which works to bring the theatre industry to the fight against book and play banning. We are partnering with Broadway’s THE OUTSIDERS to spotlight National Banned Books Week and to drive attention to Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s Books Save Lives Act. This coming week, audience members’ Playbills will have an insert connecting them to their Congressperson to ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Books Save Lives Act. TYA/USA members can as well by going here.

After the 8pm performance of THE OUTSIDERS on 9/28, we are hosting a talkback about how to fight book and play bans moderated by Tony Award-winning director Danya Taymor featuring Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley herself along with a representative of the Brooklyn Public Library and their Books Unbanned program, a representative from Penguin Random House showcasing the work they are doing in court to overturn bans, and members of THE OUTSIDERS Youth Ambassador Council.

Ohhh, hard to pick just one so I am going to cheat. My family and I were lucky enough to see LEMPICKA this summer right before its untimely closing and I am still thinking about it. It was bold and a little all over the place and brash and wonderful. I loved how they were trying new things and totally went for it, without any assurance that it would work. I’m thinking so much about funding and support and how we allow space for development and failure, to be able to get us to new and amazing, and I’m inspired by how that team tried to do it. And the final moment of the first act had the single best lighting cue I have ever seen in my life.

I have also been watching how the phenomenal dance company Monica Bill Barnes has been navigating The Louvre stealing their Museum Workout and thinking about community and accountability and generosity and what that means to all of us as art makers.

I am in the beginning stages of a new piece titled INSTITUTES OF MEMORY that is an immersive, interactive event. INSTITUTES OF MEMORY posits that the goal of our democracy is inclusion. But fear of exclusion drives us to forget or misremember; to not rock the boat. This sheen of inclusion inspires a fear of remembering; a fear that the act of memorializing threatens us. Our democracy is broken by fear. The revolutionary act is real remembrance; true memorialization capturing the fullness of our American story. It’s when we create a democracy containing ALL memory that we begin to build one inclusive of us all.

This piece will be an all ages piece and, along with amazing collaborators, is focusing on the experiences of Jewish Americans and Black Americans. Want to know more, host a development week, or co-produce this? Hit me up!

Young people are the most honest and most insightful audience members and collaborators. If you want your work to be the best it can be, make it for teens and tweens. Better yet, make it WITH teens and tweens and professionals. On the projects where I can bring those groups together, the exchange and encouragement of ideas can almost be seen flying through the air. Young people, especially in this moment where there is so much upheaval and uncertainty in the world, deserve high quality, professional work that speaks to the things they are passionate about and shines a light on more of the world for them to learn about. Young people have agency and unique experiences and should have work that reflects that, ESPECIALLY teens and tweens, even if they are harder to sell to. If you want more of my soapbox on this, reach out!

My whole No Book Bans team (which is also a lot of my Missing From The Museum team!) I am so grateful to artists who are not shying away from taking action in this political moment, both in their art making and their activism. These coalition partners are in places where book banning is more rampant than it is in NYC, though we have it here as well, so I am especially thankful to them for being willing to stand up and speak out.

Jonathan Shmidt Chapman! Has been and remains a rock for me.

Shoot me an email! jody@offthepageeducation.org.

Orlando Family Stage is in partnership with University of Central Florida. The partnership supports the MFA program in Theatre for Young Audiences, research, collaborative projects and so much more. Over the last few years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Elizabeth Horn (UCF Faculty) to create an anthology of 10 minute plays addressing mental health and wellness with high school students through a program called Mind Matters. We worked with incredible drama teachers and students from Orange County Public Schools, professors and students from UCF Psychology Department, and playwrights from around the country to develop new work responsive to what young people are facing right now. The anthology was recently published by YouthPlays and entitled: PIECES OF MIND. In addition to the anthology, we worked with our local and national teaching artists to develop a comprehensive curriculum guide to accompany the anthology.

“This Must Be the Place” by the Talking Heads on repeat.

I’m excited to be working with Florida Theatre Conference to develop an onsite devised theatre piece exploring the question: why does theatre matter? Over the course of the conference, we’ll be gathering assets from students, educators, and artists about the State of Florida funding cuts that impacted over 600 arts and culture organizations. I’m looking forward to seeing how their thoughts and ideas can serve as critical arts advocacy.

As a parent, one of my favorite things to do is share theatre with my own children. We love stories in our house whether we’re making them up, reading, or seeing them live on stage. Orlando Family Stage is producing DRAGONS LOVE TACOS THE MUSICAL February 3-March 9, 2025. I told my 5 year old and his first question was: “How are they going to do the fire?!” I love that I couldn’t answer the question and said, “We’ll have to see!” Surprise, delight, creativity, connection, inclusion – the list goes on for why TYA.

All of my collaborators! But one of my favorites is Jennifer Bohn at Evans High School. She’s welcomed myself and so many other artists into her school to devise original work. I know Maria Cary, Elizabeth Horn, Arius West and many more are so grateful!

So many beautiful mentors and educators inspire me each and every day – Rives Collins, Betsy Quinn, Megan Alrutz, Katie Dawson, Lynn Hoare, Suzan Zeder, and Roxanne Schroeder-Arce to name a few!

efreeman@orlandofamilystage.com.

After a long relationship with the students we work with inside the King County Juvenile Detention Center, SCT has received additional financial support to be able to expand our teaching faculty in the facility. Since 2018, our work provides a creative outlet for students inside the center and each year we’ve operated with a small, but mighty teaching team. Thanks to this additional funding, we can initiate a teaching artist training program that allows interested members on our faculty to apprentice under the resident teaching team while receiving specialty training and professional development from local organizations that support justice-involved youth. Our goal is to be able to expand our offerings to the youth and create a sustainable infrastructure for faculty stability.

I’m reigniting my love of reading for fun. Those college years really made reading a chore and after a loooong break from casual reading, I’m falling back into picking up a good book to spend time with and really enjoyed I Am Not You Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez.

SCT spent a week with Larissa FastHorse developing a new work that we hope to bring to our stages very soon. At the final reading, the workshop room was filled with enthusiasm for what was to come. It was such a privilege to be immersed in the journey the audience was on. We left the space buzzing from the energy of the room and in the air was the feeling of renewed spirits about the importance of stories that embody not just resiliency, but unbridled joy for living one’s truth.

TYA is a vital and important aspect of our ecosystem. Not only does it help shape and provide the tools to be good humans, but it shows young people that theatre is a space for them and it’s an important space to continue forward. It is because of those magical moments they had as a child and/or adolescent in theatre, that those young audience members grow to becoming the adults who fuel theatres nationwide. They are an essential part to sustaining this art form by becoming the next generation of artists and artisans, technicians, administrators, donors, and audience members and it’s pretty awesome to know that those of us in TYA can have such a long-lasting impact from just one single seed.

Khalia Davis and Shavonne Coleman. When they were in town for the workshop of Your Name is a Song, it was absolutely delightful to be in their creative auras. I admit, I have a little bit of bias because we’ve worked together on several projects, but it is always a pleasure to spend time together, collaborate on new and important stories, and sneaking off to local beaches when we can!

Johamy Morales! I have so much appreciation for her guidance and patience with me. She taught me a lot about what it means to lead with empathy, kindness, and innovation. As I enter into this new phase of my career, I can reflect on a few moments in my administrative upbringing and now see how she Jedi-mind-mentored me (haha!). She masterfully taught me to build my resilience by reminding me to find balance in a life outside of work. She allowed me to fail in order to learn from my mistakes and see the humanity in not just others, but myself. She also provided me the rare privilege to reflect with her on the raw, often unglamorous experience of being a woman of color in leadership. She’s a true trailblazer and it’s because of her hard work clearing an inaugural pathway that others like me can take space in this field. I’m thankful that I’ve been able to learn from her and excited to continue to watch her excel in her own career.

I’m truly terrible at social media! Please feel free to reach out at tiffanym@sct.org.