ART IS CHANGE: Strategies & Skills for Activist Artists & Cultural Organizers

This is the second chapter of the Pillsbury House + Theatre story. At the corner of George Floyd Square & the Pandemic, PH+T is breaking the community development mold using the power of the arts & culture to stimulate community health, ownership & justice.

Missed Chapter 1? Go To CSCW EP 55, Pillsbury House + Theater Chapter 1

Signe V. Harriday is Artistic Producing Director at Pillsbury House + Theatre. Signe is a fierce visionary and powerful storyteller who crafts theatre that awakens our individual and collective humanity. As a director, multidisciplinary artist, activist, and facilitator, she uses theatre as a catalyst to ask questions about who we are and who we are in relation to each other.Past accomplishments include:

Associate Company Member of Pillsbury House Theatre.

Co-founder of Million Artist Movement, a collective of artists committed to Black liberation.

Co-founder of the award-winning synchronized swimming team, The Subversive Sirens.

Founder of Rootsprings Coop, a retreat center for BIPOC artists/activists/healers.

Co-founder of MaMa mOsAiC, a women of color theater company whose mission is to evoke positive social change through female centered work.

Core team member of REP Community Partners.

Signe earned her MFA in Acting at the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard and Moscow Art Theatre.

Current projects: Director of Bridgforth’s bull-jean stories, Associate Director of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower Opera, Choreography for Love of Silver Water, Playwright for Dysmorphia. Recent directing credits: Dining with the Ancestors, Fannie Lou Hammer Speak On It, Hidden Heroes

Noël Raymond is the Co-Artistic Managing Director at Pillsbury House + Theater. Noël holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Minnesota and a BFA from Ithaca College in New York. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the Multicultural Development Center and the Burning House Group Theatre Company which she co-founded in 1993. She is also a company member of Carlyle Brown and Company. She has taught acting classes and theatre movement in multiple settings to children, college students and adults with developmental disabilities.  

Noël is an Equity actor who has performed with Pillsbury House Theatre, the Burning House Group, the Guthrie Theater, Penumbra Theatre, Bryant Lake Bowl, and Minnesota Festival Theatres in Minnesota as well as the Hangar Theatre in New York. Noël’s directing credits include Underneath the Lintel, An Almost Holy Picture, Far Away, Angels in America: Parts I and II, and [sic] at Pillsbury House Theatre, From Shadows to Light at Theatre Mu, The BI Show with MaMa mOsAiC, and multiple staged readings and workshops through the Playwrights’ Center, among others. Noël has served on numerous panels including TCG/American Theatre, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Playwright’s Center and United Arts, to name a few.

Mike Hoyt: Mike is a visual artist and Pillsbury’s Creative Community Liason. For nearly twenty years he has been producing, managing, and directing arts-based community development projects and youth development programs, while making his own art in his community. Creating and facilitating unique shared experiences that connect diverse and often non traditional art audiences drive his art practice. Hoyt’s work has been exhibited locally and abroad at the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Arts At Marks Garage in Honolulu, University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Pillsbury House + Theatre, Soap Factory, Soo Visual Arts Center, Intermedia Arts, Franconia Sculpture Park, Art Shanty Projects, and the Walker Art Center among others. He has received awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board, a Northern Lights.mn Art(ists) on the Verge Fellowship, a Jerome Visual Artist Fellowship, and a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship.

Hoyt has the added benefit of raising a family three blocks from PH+T and is honored to have the opportunity to engage local artists and community members in creative practice towards the development of a vibrant and healthy community for all of its members.

Pillsbury House, Epic Program: The EPIC Program, based at the Pillsbury House, is all about skill building, involvement in our community and making memories. Volunteering is practice that provides program participants a chance to gain and strengthen work skills while also helping others and integrating in the community. At People Serving People, EPIC helps with the janitorial services and that’s a big job. 

Heather McGee's book, The Sum of Us, Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?

Bill Strickland, Pittsburgh, PA, Manchester Craftsman's Guild: Bill Strickland tells a quiet and astonishing tale of redemption through arts, music, and unlikely partnerships.

Read transcript

Andrea Jenkins, Minneapolis City Council President: Andrea Jenkins made history in 2017 as the first African American openly trans woman to be elected to office in the United States. Now serving as Council President, she is also a writer, performance artist, poet and transgender activist.

KRSM, Minneapolis: KRSM is a low-power FM radio station based out of the Phillips neighborhood in South Minneapolis. Broadcasting at 98.9 FM, this is a hyper-local platform for amplifying the voices, stories, cultures, and conversations happening in our neighborhoods. Our focus is on communities that are marginalized, misrepresented, and erased by traditional media. For example, our schedule features shows in 6 different languages (English, Spanish, Somali, Ojibwe, Hmong, and Haitian Creole), and we air 10 hours of programming each week by Indigenous hosts.

North News, Minneapolis: North News, founded in 1991, is the premiere print community news source in North Minneapolis.

Breaking Ice, Pillsbury House + Theatre: Breaking Ice performances explore how systemic inequities, implicit bias and common misperceptions show up in relationships, creating uncomfortable interactions that inhibit innovation, motivation and productivity in the workplace.

See also CSCW EP 55, Pillsbury House + Theatre Chapter 1 Show Notes

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Pillsbury House + Theatre is a groundbreaking “new model for human service work that recognizes the power of the arts and culture to stimulate community participation, investment and ownership.” This is the first of two PH+T chapters.

This is a 2 Part show. Here is a link to Chapter 2 and the Bonus Episode: Lorraine Hansberry @ Pillsbury House + Theatre - Gifted & Black

Signe V. Harriday is Artistic Producing Director at Pillsbury House + Theatre. Signe is a fierce visionary and powerful storyteller who crafts theatre that awakens our individual and collective humanity. As a director, multidisciplinary artist, activist, and facilitator, she uses theatre as a catalyst to ask questions about who we are and who we are in relation to each other.Past accomplishments include:

Associate Company Member of Pillsbury House Theatre.

Co-founder of Million Artist Movement, a collective of artists committed to Black liberation.

Co-founder of the award-winning synchronized swimming team, The Subversive Sirens.

Founder of Rootsprings Coop, a retreat center for BIPOC artists/activists/healers.

Co-founder of MaMa mOsAiC, a women of color theater company whose mission is to evoke positive social change through female centered work.

Core team member of REP Community Partners.

Signe earned her MFA in Acting at the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard and Moscow Art Theatre.

Current projects: Director of Bridgforth’s bull-jean stories, Associate Director of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower Opera, Choreography for Love of Silver Water, Playwright for Dysmorphia. Recent directing credits: Dining with the Ancestors, Fannie Lou Hammer Speak On It, Hidden Heroes

Noël Raymond is the Co-Artistic Managing Director at Pillsbury House + Theater. Noël holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Minnesota and a BFA from Ithaca College in New York. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the Multicultural Development Center and the Burning House Group Theatre Company which she co-founded in 1993. She is also a company member of Carlyle Brown and Company. She has taught acting classes and theatre movement in multiple settings to children, college students and adults with developmental disabilities.  

Noël is an Equity actor who has performed with Pillsbury House Theatre, the Burning House Group, the Guthrie Theater, Penumbra Theatre, Bryant Lake Bowl, and Minnesota Festival Theatres in Minnesota as well as the Hangar Theatre in New York. Noël’s directing credits include Underneath the Lintel, An Almost Holy Picture, Far Away, Angels in America: Parts I and II, and [sic] at Pillsbury House Theatre, From Shadows to Light at Theatre Mu, The BI Show with MaMa mOsAiC, and multiple staged readings and workshops through the Playwrights’ Center, among others. Noël has served on numerous panels including TCG/American Theatre, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Playwright’s Center and United Arts, to name a few.

Mike Hoyt: Mike is a visual artist and Pillsbury’s Creative Community Liason. For nearly twenty years he has been producing, managing, and directing arts-based community development projects and youth development programs, while making his own art in his community. Creating and facilitating unique shared experiences that connect diverse and often non traditional art audiences drive his art practice. Hoyt’s work has been exhibited locally and abroad at the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Arts At Marks Garage in Honolulu, University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Pillsbury House + Theatre, Soap Factory, Soo Visual Arts Center, Intermedia Arts, Franconia Sculpture Park, Art Shanty Projects, and the Walker Art Center among others. He has received awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board, a Northern Lights.mn Art(ists) on the Verge Fellowship, a Jerome Visual Artist Fellowship, and a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship.

Hoyt has the added benefit of raising a family three blocks from PH+T and is honored to have the opportunity to engage local artists and community members in creative practice towards the development of a vibrant and healthy community for all of its members.

Pillsbury House + Theatre A cultural landmark at the crossroads of four historic and diverse Minneapolis neighborhoods, Pillsbury House + Theatre (PH+T) unites innovative human services with professional arts experiences for 30,000 residents who call the area home. A hub for transformational art that brings the public as close as possible to the best local talent while engaging important conversations that lead to positive change. Visit pillsburyhouseandtheatre.org for upcoming performances.

Pillsbury United Communities Beginning in 1879 with Minneapolis’s first settlement house, Pillsbury United Communities co-creates enduring change toward a just society. Built with and for historically marginalized and underinvested groups across our community, our united system of programs, neighborhood centers, and social enterprises connects more than 55,000 individuals and their families each year. We are guided by a vision of thriving communities where every person has personal, social, and economic power.

Dakota Uprising / US- Dakota War: Viewed in a larger historical context, the Dakota War was part of a series of conflicts that have been called the American Indian Wars. These caused, together with starvation and disease, a massive decimation of the Indian population across the United States. Following these repeated attempts to destroy Native American populations, the United States government embarked on a policy of assimilation towards indigenous people into Euro-American society. These policies would remain in effect until well into the second half of the twentieth century.   

George Floyd: On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was suffocated by a police officer in Minneapolis, while three other officers looked on. This tragic murder was not a one-off or something that can be attributed to a rogue officer: George Floyd has joined a long list of black men, women, and children who have been killed in recent years by police officers in the US. (Here is a list of some of the names of black people killed by the police since Eric Garner's murder in 2014 and George Floyd's murder this year.) Protests have since erupted all over the world, not only in response to George Floyd’s murder, but also in response to the systemic racism that has devalued black lives,  and has left black people vulnerable to police brutality and inequality. In the UK, Black Lives Matter UK has organized countless protests in towns and cities across the country: people have taken to the streets in their thousands to not only demand justice for George Floyd, but also to call for an end to systemic racism. 

The One Parenting Decision that Really Matters, Atlantic Monthly, May, 2022: Summary) Parents make an estimated 1,750 difficult decisions during the first year of their kid's life. Almost none of them matter as much as parents think they do, writes Seth Stephens-Davidowitz in The Atlantic. But there is one decision that seems to have a substantial long-term impact on a child's wellbeing: where they were raised. Research suggests that the best cities can increase a child's future income by about 12 percent, for example. According to Stephens-Davidowitz's estimation, "some 25 percent — and possibly more — of the overall effects of a parent are driven by where that parent raises their child."

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture): Community-supported agriculture (CSA model) or cropsharing is a system that connects producers and consumers within the food system closer by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms. It is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming.[1] The model is a subcategory of civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of community through local markets.[2]

Chicago Avenue Project: ince 1996, the Chicago Avenue Project has brought local youth together with the Twin Cities’ best adult playwrights, actors, and directors to create and produce original plays. The Chicago Avenue Project features two performances each year. For the spring performance, kids and their adult acting mentors star in 10-minute plays written just for them by adult playwrights. For the winter performance, kids and their adult playwriting mentors write 10-minute plays that are performed by adult actors. The result is original theatre that is heartwarming, hilarious, and infused with the brilliance of young minds. The project is not about teaching youth to perform, though they do learn acting—nor is it about teaching them how to write plays, though they learn that, too. The Chicago Avenue Project gives every child—no matter their circumstances—the opportunity to discover that they have a lot of creativity and value to offer.

What to Send Up When it Goes Down by Aleshea Harris: What to Send Up When It Goes Down is a play, a ritual, and a home-going celebration that bears witness to the physical and spiritual deaths of Black people as a result of racist violence. Setting out to disrupt the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness and acknowledge the resilience of Black people throughout history, Aleshea Harris’s acclaimed, groundbreaking play blurs the boundaries between actors and audiences, offering a space for catharsis, discussion, reflection, and healing. The play was created for a Black audience, but all are welcome. The intention of the play is to create a space for as many Black-identifying audience members as possible.

A Streetcar Named Desire: Streetcar Named Desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947.[1] The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her once-prosperous situation to move into a shabby apartment in New Orleans rented by her younger sister and brother-in-law.

Williams' most popular work, A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the most critically acclaimed plays of the twentieth century.[1] It still ranks among his most performed plays, and has inspired many adaptations in other forms, notably a critically acclaimed film that was released in 1951.[2]

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change. 

The recorded conference presentation you are about to hear includes a made up game show, a scene from a novella about artists working in a fictional prison, and a visit to a fake town in the midst of a harsh reckoning around issues of race, justice, othering, and belonging. (A Reprise of Episode 27)

Welcome to a Bonus edition of Change the Story Change the World —- as we pay a visit to the 16th Annual Art in Society Conference.

Bill Cleveland: Hi I’m Bill Cleveland, the host of Change the Story / Change the World. This week we are going to do something a bit different.

A few episodes back we shared a conversation with writer Jan Cohen Cruz to commemorate the New Village Press publication of Meeting the Moment by her and artist activist Rad Periera.

This week’s bonus episode is indirectly related to another soon to be published New Village volume called the Book of Judith, "an homage to the life of poet, writer, and teaching artist Judith Tannenbaum and her impact on incarcerated and marginalized students."

Judith, who passed away in 2019, taught me a lot about both art making, and the imagination. In my own teaching her lessons have been a constant presence, often manifesting through the stories she shared in her work.

This was the case In June of 2021 when I participated in an international conference convened by the Art in Society Research Network. My part in this online conference was a presentation about using story-based strategies for community arts training. My approach was to share few stories, including one of Judith’s about how using stories can help prepare artists for work in real life communities and social institutions.

So, the recorded conference presentation you are about to hear includes a game show, a scene from Judith’s novella about artists working in prison, and a visit to a fake town in the midst of a harsh reckoning around issues of race, justice, othering, and belonging.

Welcome to a special edition of change the story Change the World —- as we pay a visit to the 16th Annual Art in Society Conference.

Hi: I’m Bill Cleveland. I am speaking to you from, Alameda CA, near Oakland which is the traditional land of the Ohlone people and home our county’s new VP Kamala Harris.

I run the Center for the Study of Art & Community. Our name is a mouthful to be sure but we have a pretty simple mission. Which is basically, helping to Create new community art partnerships in service to building caring, capable & equitable communities and then telling the stories that rise up. Over the past couple of decades, the Center has done that by conducting research, providing cross-sector community arts training, and producing studies, articles books and a podcast on arts-based community development and social change efforts all over the world.

Enough about us. I’d like to begin this presentation by inviting you to participate in one of our fabulous Quiz shows.

The show is actually a little game called TRUTH OR NO. The object of the game is to spark your imaginations and have a bit of fun. To do this you will need write a few things down, Yeah, I know you thought this conference would be just sitting and watching, but please, indulge me here. I’ll give you 30 seconds to grab a pencil and paper.

OK now lets start. The game goes like this: In a little bit I am going to share 4 really short-stories that may or may not be true. Your job is to identify the ones that are false. Before I start t you will need to write 1 through 4 on a piece of paper. Now after each little story I tell write T for those you think are true and N for No for the fabrications. This will happen very fast. So here we go.

Space Out: Way back in the 20th century the US Space Program felt they needed more public support. So, they decided to engage artists to help them to draw more positive attention to their efforts. This NASA arts program started with a bang – hiring Oh Superman, Laurie Anderson and Pop artist, Robert Rauschenberg as resident artists to make art celebrating the exploration of the cosmos.

CRACKED: Once upon a time A group of neighbors found themselves with a crack house problem. They responded by engaging law enforcement, zoning officials, and the city council, all to no avail. In their desperation they turned to a group of artists from the community. These artists went crazy, whipping out a mural that was so powerful that within 24 hours of its completion the dope peddlers had totally fled the scene, never to return.

MAXED OUT: If you are incarcerated in SuperMax prison you spend 90% of your life locked in an 8x10 cell and will breath fresh air only 60 minutes a week. A woman artist who felt that this was a terrilble thing decided to use her art to shut down her state’s supermax. After she created her work the governor of her state decided it was time to shut down the state’s, 700 bed supermax prison and now its gone.

TREES, WOLVES, & DEMOCRACY: There was once an artist who planted trees, slept with wolves and decided to change the world. To do this he and some fellow artists created an artwork that resulted in the election of thousands of progressive candidates to local and national elective offices in dozens of countries around the world.

Four pretty crazy, improbable stories. So, how did you vote. If you get them all right you have won am an all-expenses paid trip to a place called St. Francis Maryland, which I’ll tell you about in a moment. Here’s the lowdown on the 4 stories.

NASA: Yes, Laurie and Robert were employed by a NASA arts program that goes back to the 60’s

CRACK HOUSE This is true too. In Atlanta mural artist Normando Ismay and a mural crew turned a crack house into a Massive multicolored 4-sided billboard advertising the best drugs at Deep Discounts. For some reason, customers stopped showing up.

SUPERMAX: What can I say, this one seems like a stretch, but its true too. In 2008 Laurie Jo Reynolds, a videographer who calls herself a legislative artist launched TAMMS ten year, an arts project to expose the inhumane conditions at an Illinois’ supermax prison specifically designed for sensory deprivation and solitary confinement. In 2013 Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced its closure.

ART and ELECTION: Number 4. There’s no way for this one, but what can I say. The green party was established as something called a social sculpture by a group of artists led by Joseph Beuys.

This game was a quick and silly way to introduce some history that has helped define what has variously been called community arts, or arts-based community development, or more recently creative placemaking and social practice. In it, we used a fictional game show to tell some hard to believe, but true stories. Along the way, some of you may have encountered some degree of skepticism about the power of the human imagination to provoke change. When we train artists and their community partners for creative collaborations, we use games like these with multiple rounds to have fun, and get out of their heads, and into a place where they can exercise their imaginations, individually and, most importantly together.

This workshop is about how stories can help us access some of the most difficult lessons about art making in service to community learning, building, healing, and mobilizing. In Truth or NO the story was a game that I made up that you, hopefully played along with. Playing is the key here, because PLAY, is basically life practice. This is true for all the creatures in the animal kingdom, including us. When we are young a lot of our play is physical testing and problem solving. As we get older it migrates more and more into realm of thinking and what we call adult learning. As community arts trainers we are trying provide a memorable learning experience that can help our students respectfully engage often complex and ambiguous institutional and community systems and cultures.

NORTHCOAST CORRECTIONAL FACILITY

Another of our most effective training resources are stories about fictional neighborhoods or agencies that we use to tell the real story of what it’s like to navigate them as creative change agents. In these narratives’ artists, and community members, administrators and staff explore the conundrums and contradictions, the heartaches and little victories that creative partners dance with every day in these “other places.”

The example of this I’m going to share was created during time I ran California’s Arts-in-Corrections program. Its called The Nouvella, which is a work of fiction by writer/teaching artist/activist Judith Tannenbaum that was used to train artists getting ready to teach one of California’s 32 correctional facilities. At the time A_I_C was the largest arts residency program in the world, with over 1000 artists and 25,000 students. As I am sure you have noted, it has also provided the title of this workshop.

North Coast Correctional Facility (Unit 3, Third Tier)

NCCF is on indefinite lockdown following an inmate stabbing. Because of this, writing instructor Susan Robertson is working with her students through the bars of their cells. She approaches Mitch Reiser’s cell.

"Hello, Susan. Coming this way?" Mitch Reiser's voice broke into Susan's thoughts on violence and its effect on the mind and soul. She walked past a few cells to where Mitch was housed.

"Are you psychic or what? How did you know it was me?" Susan asked, always on her guard with Mitch.

She was never able to be herself with Mitch around. And Mitch was always around. There were so many silent ways in which Mitch made sure he was there, always there.

"I am psychic where you're concerned, but this time I have to give credit where credit is due."

Mitch pointed to the small mirror that he could adjust to give him a reflection of just what was coming along the walkway. Susan stepped back and looked at the other cells and saw that many such mirrors were now focused on her.

She shook her head, "I’m a trained observer, but I'm not seeing anything well today!"

“You may not be seeing well, but you sure are looking good."

Susan smiled, "Cute. Corny, but cute."

This parrying with Mitch was easy, but dangerous. If she wasn't careful, he'd pick up whatever she said and run with it as far as he could.

“Susan, come closer."

"I can hear you fine."

"But I want to smell your perfume."

"I don't wear perfume," she said, then thought, Shit, he's trapped me. I've

got to get out of this dialogue without one more personal exchange.

“Then why do you always smell so sweet?"

"Mitch, what poems are you going to read at the banquet?"

"I don't want to talk about poems."

"That's what I'm here for."

"Does your husband give you flowers?"

"Mitch ... "

'Im going to send you flowers. You'll see. Sometime you'll be home alone, night will be coming on. Maybe you'll be taking a bath or rubbing oil over your naked skin. And they'll be there, these surprise flowers. And you'll know they're from me."

"Okay, Mitch; that's it."

Never had the promise of flowers sounded so like a threat.

"I'm going to love you forever," Mitch whispered toward Susan's departing back.

Although she tried not to hear, she heard, "I've got all the time in the world, Susan, and I'm going to take as long as I need to convince you. And I'll convince you, you'll see.

A bird had flown in through the open transom and was singing in the block; Susan focused on this bird. Its song made her hear the weighted silence of the gray sky outside, the ocean water; she listened to these silent sounds that rode under her quickly beating heart, under all the noise in the block. She wanted to leave Unit 2, run back to the office and talk to Al about Mitch. But she decided to see the rest of her students first, and she walked down the tier. As steady as she could…

*****

This scene is a dramatic turning point in one the many subplots that are woven into the 100 page narrative that unfolds in The Nouvella. Beyond the episode with Mitch, the North Coast story unfolds with other unsettling twists and turns, all of which are based on the true events chronicled in Judith’s Tannenbaum’s exhaustive one year research process.

In addition to the fatal stabbing and subsequent lockdown, there is a discovered tryst between a teacher and a prisoner, a crippling state budget freeze, and most devastatingly for the arts program’s teachers, students and their families, the cancelation of the first-ever arts program awards banquet, which had been a year in the making.

Despite the intensity of this string of events, Judith Tannenbaum’s narrative is not overly dramatic, and pointedly so. This is because one of the most incongruent characteristics of prison life is the plodding drumbeat of hard-to-imagine juxtapositions — boredom and fear, cacophony and silence, bad news and no news. If the joint could talk, it would surely be shouting. “You think you caught us at a bad time? Nah, this is normal. You think this is crazy? Wait ‘til next week!”

As daunting as it might seem, Judith understood that her principal job here was as a translator — making some sense of a place where the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter would feel quite comfortably at home. A place where seemingly simple questions about the “right” thing to do are answered with alternating layers of clarity and quicksand.

A place where the signs and signals we all depend on to find our way are offered up in a “Yes/But actually No” oscillating current that is both confounding and oddly thrilling. Our task here with the Nouvella was to create a story that attracted and supported new creative colleagues but also discouraged slackers? Who else but an artist could render this world in a way that conveyed the elusive truth of this foggy netherworld without scaring away the potential pathfinders?

Like I said, the stories in the Nouvella are all based on the real-life experiences of the dozens of staff and incarcerated artists she interviewed during her research. These, of course, included Judith’s own experiences as a writing teacher working on the prison planet. Which is a place where truth, beauty, trust, tenderness, vulnerability, color, sensitivity, choice — all the intangible qualities humans need to thrive — are virtually nonexistent.

But through her teaching she made these things available to her students. In the process, they become creators with a chance to own bit more of their unique story — an act of personal agency that is a precious thing, on the inside.

Doing this takes courage for both the teacher and the taught. Writing the Nouvella, though called for another kind of bravery. This is because the scene you just heard was a fictionalized version of a real struggle Judith had with one of her students. Like “Mitch”, this poet, a lifer, with two rape murder convictions, was a persistent edge pusher whose obsession with Judith became more and more tenacious over time. The line was crossed when a staff member overheard him describing in detail his plans for Judith to fellow prisoners.

This was a terrifying situation for Judith. And, because of the program, other women at Q, the rules, and a dozen other reasons, both paranoid and real, the incident could not be written off. Her conflict about reporting it up the chain of command only added to her distress. Her compassion in telling this difficult story in the Nouvella is a testament to the enormous sense of responsibility she carried for each of her students.

Prior to the Nouvella we relied primarily on the institutions to orient our new artists. This often turned out to be what we used to call a dog and pony show – A two or three hour power point workshop with a Sergeant up there saying, “Part your hair wrong, and you're in trouble. Here's the Director's Rule’s, read them, remember them, follow them, and you'll be just fine”

But for us, that did not cut it. Our artists did need to know the rules, for sure, but given the intimate nature of creative teaching they needed to understand the culture too. Something that could shed a little light on shifting shadows that define life inside—something Like the Nouvella.

So now you might ask: How did this turn out. We created a training that used the Nouvella as its foundation. Here is what the department’s research showed.

We found our artists were less inclined to stereotype corrections staff and incarcerated people.

When problems arose artists tended to ask questions rather than make snap judgements.

We saw improved trust for artists among staff and incarcerated students

There was better communication between correctional staff and artists

We saw better cooperation from line staff and institutional administrators

We got greater respect from students who appreciated the increasingly savvy artists they encountered.

We saw a marked Increase in participation in the program

And there were Fewer program threatening incidents involving artists.

Most importantly, the characters and stories represented in the Nouvella became a safe space for exploring the complicated often contradictory issues and forces that defined life and work in prison. At the end of the day, it was much easier to ask a critical question about the fictional Susan Robertson or Assistant Warden’s motivations or decision making than it was to challenge a colleague or staff member. PAUSE

St. Francis. Our third example of how an invented storyline can help build skills and understanding takes the Northcoast institutional strategy to another level. It was developed with the University of Massachusetts', Arts Extension Service which provides online professional certificate and degree programs for arts leaders in the US and overseas. In this case, rather than provide a story about a fictional place, we asked the students in our Creative Community Leadership course to spin their own saga playing (There’s that word again) playing arts leaders in response to an escalating series of events that precipitates a mini- cultural war in the fake town of St. Francis Maryland. Along the way they learned a lot about the power of the imagination for good and ill, and each other.

Teaching Basketball Online

When theater artist Kathryn Bentley and I began designing this course we were faced with a daunting question. How do you train for relationship intensive work like community arts using a distance learning platform?

We likened this conundrum to trying to teach basketball online, which, of course, is impossible. It might work for a course on the history of basketball, its rules, and maybe some coaching theories, but the game itself can’t be learned without players, practicing hoops together on the court.

The same can be said of community arts practice, which like basketball, involves groups of people with different skills and perspectives, trying to work well together. Applying arts-based strategies to critical community issues like health, affordable housing, public safety, education, and equitable development requires trust-based partnerships.

Learning to collaborate effectively across community sectors, takes a lot of practice with real partners, working in real communities. So, once again, how do you help students prepare for these real-world challenges using an online learning platform?

Our response was to create a mid-sized town of about 85,000 situated on the eastern seaboard of the US for our students to play in. At first blush St. Francis seems like a fairly prosperous middle of the road...

DAH SAYS: "In today’s world, we can oppose destruction and violence with the creation of meaning ... we create bold dramatic art to provoke, inspire, and incite personal and social transformation."

Be sure to check out our CHANGE THE STORY COLLECTION OF ARCHIVED EPISODES on: Justice Arts, Art & Healing, Cultural Organizing, Arts Ed./Children & Youth, Community Arts Training, Music for Change, Theater for Change, Change Making Media.

Dijana Milošević is an award-winning theater director, writer and lecturer. She co-founded the DAH Theater Research Center in Belgrade, and has been its lead director for over 25 years.

Dijana has served as the artistic director of theater festivals, the president of the Association of Independent Theaters, the president of the board of BITEF Theater, and a member of the board of directors of the national International Theater Institute (ITI). She has been involved with several peacebuilding initiatives and collaborates with feminist-activist groups.

DAH Theater has performed nationally and internationally under Dijana’s directing. She has also directed plays by other theater companies around the world.

She is a well-known lecturer, who has taught at world-famous universities. She writes articles and essays about theater as well as society. She has won prestigious scholarships such as Fulbright and Arts Link. She is a professor at the Institute for Artistic Play in Belgrade.

Dah Teatar Research Center for Culture and Social Change: DAH Theatre is an independent, professional, contemporary theatre troupe and artistic collective that uses modern theatre techniques to create engaging art and initiate positive social change, both locally and globally.  Mission: In today’s world, we can oppose destruction and violence with the creation of meaning.” Through dedicated teamwork, we create bold dramatic art to provoke, inspire, and incite personal and social transformation.

Art and Upheaval - Artists on the World’s Frontlines: Author William Cleveland shares r emarkable stories from Northern Ireland, Cambodia, South Africa, United States (Watts, Los Angeles), aboriginal Australia, and Serbia, about artists who resolve conflict, heal unspeakable trauma, give voice to the forgotten and disappeared, and restitch the cultural fabric of their communities.

This Babylonian Confusion: The Dah Teatar project “This Babylonian Confusion” is a result of a montage of the actors’ materials and the songs of Bertold Brecht. This performance was created from the need of the artists to place themselves in their duty- as artists in “dark times.” Four actors using the characters of Angels say their share against war, nationalism and destruction. [1992]

Slobodan Milošivić: was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who served as the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997. Formerly a high-ranking member of the League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) during the 1980s, he led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990 until 2003. After Milošević's death, the ICTY and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals found that he was a part of a joint criminal enterprise which used violence to remove Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians from large parts of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. 

Bertolt Brecht: was one of the most influential playwrights of the 20th century. His works include The Threepenny Opera (1928) with composer Kurt Weill, Mother Courage and Her Children (1941), The Good Person of Szechwan (1943), and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1958). A member of the Independent Social Democratic Party, Brecht wrote theater criticism for a Socialist newspaper from 1919 to 1921. His plays were banned in Germany in the 1930s, and in 1933, he went into exile, first in Denmark and then Finland. He moved to Santa Monica, California, in 1941, hoping to write for Hollywood, but he drew the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee. 

The Story of Tea: The central theme of the performance is the train that will finally take three sisters to the place of their dreams- Moscow, or missed opportunities and gambled chances, inspired and provoked by the other important themes of DAH Theater’s ‘three sisters.’ 

Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov is a play by the Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre. The play is sometimes included on the short list of Chekhov's outstanding plays, along with The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya.[1]

Rio Tinto: Rio Tinto Group is an Anglo-Australian multinational company that is the world's second-largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP).[5][6]  In May 2020, to expand the Brockman 4 mine,

Rio Tinto has been widely criticised by environmental groups as well as the government of Norway for the environmental impacts of its mining activities: claims of severe environmental damages related to Rio Tinto's engagement in the Grasberg mine in Indonesia led the Government Pension Fund of Norway to exclude Rio Tinto from its investment portfolio.[15]

Academic observers have also expressed concern regarding Rio Tinto's operations in Papua New Guinea, which they allege were one catalyst of the Bougainville separatist crisis.[16] There have also been concerns over corruption: in July 2017 the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced the launch of a fraud and corruption investigation into the company's business practices in Guinea.[17]

Ana Brnabić: born 28 September 1975) is a Serbian politician serving as the prime minister of Serbia since 2017. She is the first woman and first openly gay person to hold the office.[1] 

Women in Black: Women in Black is a world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and other forms of violence. As women experiencing these things in different ways in different regions of the world, we support each other’s movements. An important focus is challenging the militarist policies of our own governments. We are not an organisation, but a means of communicating and a formula for action.

Explorez Festival: Theater, dance, music and visual arts with a social impact in an international perspective. Since 2016, ZID has been organizing the international crossover festival ExploreZ where the city of Amsterdam is a stage for the city’s residents, artists and (inter) national theater makers. Each festival has its own theme, which is current for the makers and for social developments both locally and internationally.

25 Glasses of Wine: A lecture-performance featuring DAH Theater’s director, using autobiographical texts to discuss the work of a theater troupe and their adventures in the historical-political context of ‘a country which no longer exists

Dennis Barnett (Coe College): With an interest in works in translation, Professor Barnett has edited two collections of essays about theatre in Eastern Europe including one devoted to DAH Theatre in Belgrade, Serbia. He leads May Term in Serbia giving students an opportunity to train with the group of artist-activists. 

Invisible City: A Dah performance in the city bus system, and on-going project, ‘In/visible City’ is meant to render visible both the cultural richness of ethnic diversity and the multi-ethnic structure of Serbian cities.

Dancing Trees: Dah’s Dancing Trees is a site-specific dance theatre show created in collaboration with the Belgrade Dance Institute. This visually poetic performance explores the importance of trees preservation and includes wider scope of action connecting climate changes and arts.

Creative Europe: The Creative Europe programme 2021-2027 has a budget of € 2.44 billion. Creative Europe invests in actions that reinforce cultural diversity and respond to the needs and challenges of the cultural and creative sectors. 

Erasmus+ is the EU's programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe that has, in some cases provided support for sport related arts programs.

The Hidden Life of Trees: In The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. (from Goodreads)

ITAC: International Teaching Artists Collaborative: The first world wide network of artists who work in community and educational settings.

Students Park: Actually, its proper name is Academic Park, but Belgrade slang has been successfully neglecting the fact since the 1970s….

Conundrum of the Revolution: Rosa Luxembourg – ‘Red Rosa’ is an inspiration for revolt, against everything inhuman, violent, and exploitative, still today when revolt is not readily visible. Rosa presents us with the question- where is rebellion, is it possible?

The Wedding Community Play: The Wedding Community Play Project is an ingeniously crafted, thought-provoking and highly enjoyable piece of work, described by its producers as "the most unusual play structure ever performed in Belfast". The Wedding actually appropriates the most familiar and popular form of drama of the late 20th century - soap opera - and brings it to life by setting its story in the homes, streets and public spaces of the city. (Irish Times)

The Troubles: The Troubles (Irish: Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist[15][16][17][18] conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998.[19] Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict,[20][21][22][23] it is sometimes described as an "irregular war"[24][25][26] or "low-level war".[27][28]

Felicia Young uses arts-based strategies and tools to spur community action. She has helped save hundreds of New York's community gardens, clean up a sacred river in India, stymie one of America’s most powerful politicians, bring attention to local solutions to the climate crises, and most importantly bring people together to make real change.

Felicia Young is a social action artist and the Founder/Executive Director of Earth Celebrations, a non-profit organization since 1991 engaging communities to generate ecological and social change through the arts. For the past 30 years she has applied the the arts to build community, collaboration and environmental action on climate change, water quality, river restoration, waste management, and the preservation of species, habitats, nature, gardens, parks, and a healthy urban environment. She has pioneered cultural strategies utilizing collaborative arts to build broad-based coalitions and diverse sector partnerships with local organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, schools and community residents to work together, develop solutions and mobilize action to achieve common goals and ecological, policy and social change.

Her social action art projects include a 15-year grass-roots effort and annual theatrical pageant that led to the preservation of hundreds of community gardens in New York City and a project to engage community on restoration efforts of the Hudson River and impacts of climate change. She then applied these cultural strategies to build an international collaborative effort to restore the Vaigai River in Madurai South India, in a severe crisis due to pollution and the drying effects of climate change. Felicia's current Ecological City: Cultural & Climate Solutions Action Project engages community on climate solution initiatives throughout the community gardens, neighborhood and waterfront on the Lower East Side of New York City, and their importance to city and global climate challenges.

As a native 3rd generation New Yorker, she has deep roots in the City of New York, as well as much inspiration from the festivals, ceremonies, and mythic dramas from her mother’s native land of India.

Felicia Young has also developed a course " Art, Ecology and Community" for Princeton University. She has BA in Art History from Skidmore College and a MA degree in Performance Studies from New York University. 

Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met",[a] is the largest art museum in the Western Hemisphere. Its permanent collection contains over two million works,[1] divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is by area one of the world's largest art museums. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from medieval Europe.

Julian Schnable is one of the most seminal and virtuosic artists working today. His multidisciplinary practice extends beyond painting to include sculpture, film, architecture, and furniture. He is an award-winning movie director but primarily a painter. His use of preexisting materials not traditionally used in art making, varied painting surfaces and inventive modes of construction were pivotal in the reemergence of painting in the United States in the late 1970’s and the rest of the world. (artist’s website)

Skidmore College is a private liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,650 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree in one of more than 60 areas of study.

Jacques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity and severity and heightened feeling,[1] harmonizing with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.

David later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic.

Mbari: There is an artistic taboo among my people, the Igbo of Nigeria. It is a prohibition—on pain of being finished off rather quickly by the gods—against laying a proprietary hand on even the smallest item in that communal enterprise which they undertook from time, and to which they gave the name mbari. Mbari was a celebration through art of the world and of the life lived in it. It was performed by the community on command by its presiding deity, usually the earth goddess, Ana. Ana combined two formidable roles in the Igbo pantheon as fountain of creativity in the world and custodian of the moral order in human society. An abominable act is called nso-ana, taboo-to-Earth.

Once every so often, and in her absolute discretion, this goddess would instruct the community through divination to build a home of images in her honor. The diviner would travel through the village and knock on the doors of those chosen by Ana for her work. These chosen people were then blessed and separated from the larger community in a ritual with more than a passing resemblance to their own death and funeral. Thereafter, they moved into the forest and, behind a high fence and under the instruction and supervision of master artists and craftsmen, they constructed a temple of art. – Chinua Achebe

Carlton Turner Episode 47: Change the Story / Change the World.:  Carlton Turner is an artist, agriculturalist, researcher, and co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture). Sipp Culture uses food and story to support rural community development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi where his family has been for eight generations.

Alternative Museum: The Alternative Museum was originally founded in 1975 as the Alternative Center for International Arts Inc. TAM served the public with more than 375 exhibitions and over 500 concerts and panel discussions as it provided a new paradigm for contemporary arts institutions. Projects focused on the pressing social and political issues of our times.

Dia de los Muertos: In Mexico, death rites date from pre-Hispanic rituals represented in murals, painted pottery, monuments, and artifacts, which shows how the Day of the Dead has its origins in the rituals practiced by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Its precedents date to more than 3000 years ago when the Olmecs and subsequent Toltecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Maya, and Aztecs honored death.

Those who passed are alive in our memories. A continuous echo that at certain occasions becomes louder. As the only answer to many of our questions, death is an integral part of life, and the living and the dead meet in this day to emphasize the importance of death in the cycle of life.

 Judson Dance Theater was a collective of dancers, composers, and visual artists who performed at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York City between 1962 and 1964. The artists involved were avant garde experimentalists who rejected the confines of Modern dance practice and theory, inventing as they did the precepts of Postmodern dance.[1]

Judson Gallery: n 1957, the Judson Church offered gallery space to Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and Robert Rauschenberg, who were then unknown artists. In 1959, the Judson Gallery showed work by pop artists, Tom Wesselmann, Daniel Spoerri, and Red Grooms. Yoko Ono also had her work exhibited at the gallery Manipulations (1969), a series of performances at the Judson Church by Fluxus artists Jean Toche, Steve Young, Nam June Paik, and Al Hansen, and work by Nye Ffarrabas.

Phyllis Yampolsky was active at Judson Church and at the Judson Gallery in the late 1950s and early 1960. Since the 1960s, Yampolsky has concentrated on participatory arts. Driven by a "burdensome missionary consciousness," she continues to be engaged in community projects in New York City. 

Kumbha Mela is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism.[1] It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years, to celebrate every revolution Brihaspati (Jupiter) completes, at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: Allahabad (Ganges-Yamuna-Sarasvati rivers confluence), Haridwar (Ganges), Nashik (Godavari), and Ujjain (Shipra).[1][2] The festival is marked by a ritual dip in the waters, but it is also a celebration of community commerce with numerous fairs, education, religious discourses by saints, mass gatherings of monks , and entertainment spectacle.[3][4] The seekers believe that bathing in these rivers is a means to prāyaścitta (atonement, penance) for past mistakes,[5] and that it cleanses them of their sins.[6]

Chithirai Festival,[1][2] also known as Chithirai Thiruvizha, Meenakshi Kalyanam or Meenakshi Thirukalyanam, is an annual Tamil Hindu celebration in the city of Madurai during the month of April. The festival, celebrated during the Tamil month of Chithirai, is associated with the Meenakshi Temple, dedicated to the goddess 

This Bonus episode of Change the Story / Change the World is in celebration of the publishing of Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance - 1965-2020 by Those Who Lived It, by Jan Cohen Cruz and Rad Pereira.

Hi this is Bill Cleveland. I'd like to welcome you to a Bonus episode of Change the Story / Change the World in celebration of a publishing milestone. For the past 4 decades Jan Cohen Cruz has been working at the crossroads of theater and social change, as a performer, as a teacher, and as a storyteller documenting the continuing evolution of socially engaged performance. Now, I'm very happy to announce that her new book Meeting the Moment, shines a light on that extraordinary history by sharing the stories of the people lived it.

In this episode, first broadcast in November of 2021, Jan talks about her own history as an activist, performer and teacher, and the genesis of Meeting the Moment, which was recently released by New Village Press. Links to both New Village, and a related episode featuring Carlton Turner who wrote the book's forward can be found in our show notes.

Jan Cohen-Cruz has given a lot to the field of arts-based community development. By that, I mean that there's a significant body of academic and community-based artwork, scholarship, teaching, and organizing that are absolutely covered with her fingerprints.

Jan Cohen-Cruz was the founding editor of Public: A Journal of Imagining America. She directed Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life (2007-12), and for 28 years before that, was a professor at NYU, directing a minor in applied theatre and initiating socially-engaged projects and courses. She wrote Engaging Performance: Theatre as Call and Response and Local Acts: Community‑Based Performance in the US. She edited Radical Street Performance and co‑edited Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism and A Boal Companion. Jan was also a University Professor at Syracuse University. In 2012, she received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Award for Leadership in Community-Based Theatre and Civic Engagement. Here latest book, Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Theater, 1965 To 2020 written with Rad Pereira will published by New Village Press in May 2022.

Carlton Turner is a brilliant artist and creative change agent whose work across the country and in his hometown of Utica Mississippi dramatically proves that if you can "see" a different future you can make make a different future. He makes this point and much more in his eloquent introduction to Meeting the Moment, the new book by this episode's guest Jan Cohen Cruz and Rad Pereira. You can hear more from Carlton in Episode 47

New Village Press: “The mission of New Village Press is to promote and enrich public discussion and understanding of issues vital to the development of healthy, creative, and socially just communities. To that end, New Village publishes transdisciplinary books that animate emerging movements in societal transformation. In conjunction, the Press also sponsors lectures, forums, and exhibitions for the public, especially for those communities that are underserved.”

Augusto Boal, was a Brazilian theatre practitioner, drama theorist, and political activist. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical left popular education movements. Boal served one term as a Vereador (the Brazilian equivalent of a city councillor) in Rio de Janeiro from 1993 to 1997, where he developed legislative theatre.[1]

Imagining America: “The Imagining America consortium (IA) brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Working across institutional, disciplinary, and community divides, IA strengthens and promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change that inspires collective imagination, knowledge-making, and civic action on pressing public issues.”

Public: “Public is a peer-reviewed, multimedia e-journal focused on humanities, arts, and design in public life. It aspires to connect what we can imagine with what we can do. We are interested in projects, pedagogies, resources, and ideas that reflect rich engagements among diverse participants, organizations, disciplines, and sectors.”

Meeting the Moment Socially Engaged Theater, 1965 To 2020: Jan Cohen-Cruz and Rad Pereira: Curated stories from over 75 interviews and informal exchanges offer insight into the field and point out limitations due to discrimination and unequal opportunity for performance artists in the United States over the past 55 years. In this work, performers, often unknown beyond their immediate audience, articulate diverse influences.

Open Theater: The Open Theater was an experimental theatre group active from 1963 to 1973.

Franz Kafka's The Trial: The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka between 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader.

Paris, May 1968 Strikes and Demonstrations: Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which have since become known as May 68, the economy of France came to a halt.[1]

The Devil and Daniel Webster:The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) is a short story by American writer Stephen Vincent Benét. He tells of a New Hampshire farmer who sells his soul to the devil and is later defended by Daniel Webster, a fictional version of the noted 19th-century American statesman, lawyer and orator.

Harvey Grossman: In this edited transcription of his remarks at the 2013 Pomona College (California) conference “Action, Scene and Voice,” Harvey Grossman elucidates the theory and practice of his two most important teachers: Edward Gordon Craig and Étienne Decroux. Grossman elucidates Craig’s much-debated comments on the “Art of the Theatre,” as well as Craig’s influence upon the French corporeal mime Étienne Decroux

Richard Levy, New York Street Theater: The New York Street Theatre Caravan (NYSTC), formerly the City Street Theater, was a New York City-based socialist theater collective. First conceived by Marketa Kimbrell and Richard Levy in 1967, the company was founded on the principle of bringing theater to underprivileged and geographically isolated communities. NYSTC performed plays, puppet shows, skits, and concerts with themes meaningful to their audiences, such as racial inequality, workers' rights, homelessness, and other sociopolitical issues.

Richard Schechner: Schechner was one of the founders of the Performance Studies department of the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. He founded The Performance Group of New York in 1967 and was its artistic director until 1980, when TPG changed its name to The Wooster Group.

Liz Lerman:  Liz Lerman is a choreographer, performer, writer, teacher, and speaker. She has spent the past four decades making her artistic research personal, funny, intellectually vivid, and up to the minute. A key aspect of her artistry is opening her process to everyone from shipbuilders to physicists, construction workers to ballerinas, resulting in both research and experiences that are participatory, relevant, urgent, and usable by others

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar: Urban Bush Women: Urban Bush Women (UBW) galvanizes artists, activists, audiences and communities through performances, artist development, education and community engagement. With the ground-breaking performance ensemble at its core, and ongoing programs including the Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), BOLD (Builders, Organizers & Leaders through Dance) and the Choreographic Center Initiative, UBW affects the overall ecology of the arts by promoting artistic legacies; projecting the voices of the under-heard and people of color; bringing attention to and addressing issues of equity in the dance field and throughout the United States; and by providing platforms and serving as a conduit for culturally and socially relevant experimental art makers.

Kathi Bentley: Kathryn Bentley is an associate professor of theater performance, and artistic director of Southern Illinois University’s Black Theatre Workshop. A theater professional with extensive experience as an actor, director and teaching artist, she holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theater Directing and professional training in community arts and social justice. She is a 2002 St. Louis Regional Arts Commission Community Arts Institute Fellow, and she now serves as a faculty member for the institute. She is a National Conference for Community and Justice St. Louis Certified Diversity Facilitrainer and a Certified Lessac Kinesensic Voice and Movement Practitioner. 

Love at the River’s Edge: A Shakespeare Festival St. Louis production that took place in both the streets of Pagedale, Missouri, and the farmland of Calhoun County, Illinois. Its remix of the classic play, titled “Love at the River’s Edge,” transports audience members across the Mississippi River to examine the urban and rural divide. 

Pam Korza: co-directs Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, that inspires, informs, promotes, and connects arts and culture as potent contributors to community, civic, and social change. Animating Democracy’s current work centers on building evaluation capacity of practitioners, funders, and other stakeholders to understand the impact of arts-based civic engagement and social change. Her writing and editing includes: the framework, Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change; the Continuum of Impact guide; a chapter in the book, Arts and Community Change (Routledge, 2015), and Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art & Civic Dialogue. 

A Blade of Grass: provides resources to artists who demonstrate artistic excellence and serve as innovative conduits for social change. We evaluate the quality of work in this evolving field by fostering an inclusive, practical discourse about the aesthetics, function, ethics and meaning of socially engaged art that resonates within and outside the contemporary art dialogue.

Animating Democracy: Animating Democracy’s current work centers on building evaluation capacity of practitioners, funders, and other stakeholders to understand the impact of arts-based civic engagement and social change.

Tom Finklepearl: is an American arts promoter, former museum director, and former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.[5] He was appointed in 2014 by the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio,[5] and served through the end of 2019.[6]

New York Department of Cultural Affairs, Public Artists in Residence (PAIR) is a municipal residency program that embeds artists in city government to propose and implement creative solutions to pressing civic challenges. Launched in the fall of 2015, PAIR takes its inspiration and its name from the pioneering work of artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, the first official (unsalaried) artist-in-residence with the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY), 1977 – present.

Tania Bruguera: “Tania Bruguera was born in 1968 in Havana, Cuba.[1] she is and artist and activist who focused on installation and performance artist. She lives and works between New York and Havana, and has participated in numerous international exhibitions.[2] Her work is in the permanent collections of many institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and

Who would have thought that running away with the circus could lead to a career as a successful filmmaker. Gary Glassman's path to filmmaking also, includes, street theater, teaching, prison work, and media technology. The through-line for Gary's creative adventure has been asking questions and, what else, telling stories. 

Gary Glassman believes television can change the world. He comes to television through street and circus performing – clowning, fire-eating, tight rope and stilt walking. His earliest media work is participatory projects with prisoners and the criminally insane, hospitalized children, and developmentally challenged adults. Prisoners, his first documentary, is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery, and the Pompidou Center in Paris. He started Providence Pictures in 1996 and as executive producer/director makes films for the world’s leading broadcasters including PBS, Discovery, History, National Geographic, BBC, and Arte. His films consistently achieve the highest ratings and have won and been honored with nominations for the industry’s most prestigious awards including seven Emmys, two Writers Guild Award, the AAA Science Journalism Prize, the CINE Golden Eagle, and the International Archaeology Film Festival Award. Glassman received a BA from Goddard College, and an MFA in Directing from UCLA.

Spalding Gray (June 5, 1941 – January 11, 2004) was an American actor and writer. He is best known for the autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed for the theater in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as for his film adaptations of these works, beginning in 1987. He wrote and starred in several, working with different directors. Theater critics John Willis and Ben Hodges called Gray's monologues "trenchant, personal narratives delivered on sparse, unadorned sets with a dry, WASP, quiet mania."[1]: 316 

Providence Pictures: “Since 1996, Providence Pictures has been collaborating with the world's leading broadcasters on more than fifty films seen by millions of people around the globe and honored with television's most prestigious awards.Providence Pictures is building on our foundation of innovative premium documentaries, expanding our repertoire with feature films that stir hearts and inspire action, and venturing into the ultimate sci-fi dream with an augmented reality time travel app. We believe stories can change the world.”: 

Building the Wonders of the World: A Providence Pictures series that explores the secrets of the Parthenon, Riddles of the Sphinx, Building the Great Cathedrals, Colosseum Roman Death Trap, Hagia Sophia Istanbuls Ancient Mystery, Petra Lost City of Stone. The series received nominations for Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Science and Technology Programming, Outstanding Cinematography, Writers Guild of America Award, Best Film of the International Archaeological Film Festival, CINE Special Jury Award

Native America: is a four-part PBS series that challenges everything we thought we knew about the Americas before and since contact with Europe. It travels through 15,000-years to showcase massive cities, unique systems of science, art, and writing, and 100 million people connected by social networks and spiritual beliefs spanning two continents. The series reveals some of the most advanced cultures in human history and the Native American people who created it. 

Goddard College: is a liberal arts college with campuses in Vermont and Washington with Bachelors and Masters degrees. Explore our full program offerings and learn how Goddard College is different. We blend remote learning and real life experiences. 

1973 Chilean coup d’état: was a military coup in Chile that deposed the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende. On 11 September 1973, after an extended period of social unrest and political tension between the opposition-controlled Congress and the socialist President, as well as economic war ordered by U.S. President Richard Nixon,[9] a group of military officers led by General Augusto Pinochet seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule. The Nixon administration, which had worked to create the conditions for the coup,[11][12][13] promptly recognized the junta government and supported it in consolidating power.[14]

UCLA ArtsReach Susan Hill: Change the Story / Change the World: Episode 30: Artsreach, is a UCLA Extension programs that has served a wide variety of community constituencies and the range of arts disciplines. Artsreach worksites have included youth and adult prisons, service agencies for seriously developmentally challenged adults, community centers in marginalized areas of South Central, Watts and East Los Angeles. 

Traveling Energy Band was comprised of Gary Glassman, his brother Steven, and friend, Eugene Palmer. The Band created large environmental spectacles, site-and specific performance pieces used stilts and puppets and masks. 

 Video Home System, is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes. 

Jonathan Borofsky: is an American sculptor and printmaker who lives and works in Ogunquit, Maine.[1] His most famous works, at least among the general public, are his Hammering Man public art sculptures. Hammering Man has been installed in various cities around the world. The largest Hammering Man is in Seoul, Korea and the second largest is in Frankfurt, Germany. Other Hammering Man sculptures are in Basel, Switzerland, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Seattle, Gainesville, FL, Washington, D.C. and Lillestrøm, Norway. With Gary Glassman, he created the documentary film Prisoners. 

Prisoners is a one hour documentary exploring the lives of 32 inmates in San Quentin State Prison for men and the California Institution for Women. The documentary was co-directed and produced by Jonathan Borofsky and Gary Glassman (Providence Pictures) in 1985. Based on 48 hours of interviews, the work focuses directly on the personal lives of each prisoner before they were incarcerated, while incorporating Borofsky's dream imagery and music alongside relevant facts and statistics. The documentary was screened at the American Film Institute's 1985 National Video Festival, and is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and Centre Georges Pompidou.

Arts in Corrections: In 1977, after serving on the California Arts Council, Eloise Smith and her husband, historian Charles Page Smith, created the Prison Arts Project through a pilot program at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. She secured funding by the San Francisco Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, and the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.

The pilot was a huge success, spurring support and funding from the state Legislature and the Governor. The Prison Arts Project served as the model for what would come to be known as Arts in Corrections. It was the first program of its kind, eventually expanding to all institutions across the state of California.

 Walking Smooth: Selections from the Prison Video Workshop directed by Gary Glassman, Sept. 1986 - June 1989

University of Florida's Shands Arts in Medicine program: “From humble beginnings, UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine has grown into one of the largest comprehensive arts in healthcare programs in existence.Starting with two volunteer visual artists working on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Arts in Medicine now has 16 paid artists in all art disciplines working in six separate buildings throughout the UF Health system, covering the Gainesville and Jacksonville communities. Our programs are designed to transform the hospital experience for patients, visitors, caregivers and staff and to promote health and wellness through the arts within the community.”

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

From time to time on change the Story we share a short feature we call Subito Stories. In today's Subito Story We are traveling to a Greek Island to meet an artist who I think personifies the unrelenting potency of the imaginative muscle to entertain, to provoke, and to heal.

Her name is Karina Kantas.

At the Center for the Study of Art & Community we believe that the imagination, is the most powerful aspect of what it is to be human. Our ability to conjure new ideas, complex narratives, even entire worlds, both distinguishes humans as a species, and has been essential to our survival. Our capacity to learn, adapt, and evolve in response to changing conditions is a function of our power to ponder and even test possible futures “in the mind’s eye” before we act. In essence the imagination is a principal driver of the evolution of human learning and consciousness.

From time to time on change the Story we share a short feature we call Subito Stories. In today's Subito Story We are traveling to a Greek Island to meet an artist who I think personifies the unrelenting potency of the imaginative muscle to entertain, to provoke, and to heal.

Her name is Karina Kantas.Karina Kantas on You Tube

Behind the Pen on Twitter

Behind the Pen, Podcast

Wayne Cook calls himself bumpy. Which is an apt metaphor for the story we are about to share. In it, Wayne plays a promising young athlete, a crash victim, a soldier in Germany, a child therapist, a stage actor, the Black Mr. Rogers, an arts administrator, a successful author, and Langston Hughes.

Wayne Cook worked at the California Arts Council for 23 years, where he was Program Manager of the Artists in School’s Program and the ADA/504 Disability Coordinator. He Currently consults for the William James Association and Arts in Corrections at Solano State Prison and other correctional institutions in California. In previous years, Mr. Cook consulted with the Educational Department for the Sacramento Theatre Company (STC) and was an actor in such productions as, “To Kill A Mockingbird” at STC. Other notable productions Wayne acted in were “The Iceman Cometh” for the Actor’s Theatre of Sacramento and only a few years ago received the Elly award for acting in “Learning Spanish” at the Wilkerson Theatre. Mr. Cook is the author of a drama curriculum, “Center Stage”, A Curriculum for the Performing Arts can be purchased on Amazon.com.

Mr. Rogers: Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003), also known as Mister Rogers, was an American television host, author, producer, and Presbyterian minister.[1] He was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001

Performing Tree: The Performing Tree was as arts education program that worked in schools in the Los Angeles area in the 1980’s and 90’s. 

Arts in Corrections: In the early 1970's, a time when work opportunities for artists and arts educators were diminishing in the mainstream culture, many professional artists began to look to society's forgotten corners for a new constituency. Patients and prisoners offered an alternative opportunity for artists to respond to a crying need to be valued. The emergence of these institutional art programs also provides a challenge to artists' preconceptions about the value and potential of the creative processes--a value which was as rooted in the issues of survival as those of aesthetics.

California Arts Council: Culture is the strongest signifier of California’s identity. As a state agency, the California Arts Council supports local arts infrastructure and programming statewide through grants, programs, and services.

Langston Hughes: Langston Hughes was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black intellectual, literary, and artistic life that took place in the 1920s in a number of American cities, particularly Harlem. A major poet, Hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. He sought to honestly portray the joys and hardships of working-class black lives, avoiding both sentimental idealization and negative stereotypes. As he wrote in his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” “We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.”

Senator Cory Booker: On March 23, 2022 Senator Booker quoted from Langston Hughes’ poem Let American be America Again, in his supporting comments during Senate hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court. 

Senator Booker an American politician, attorney, and author who has served as the junior United States senator from New Jersey since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Booker is the first African-American U.S. senator from New Jersey. He was the 38th mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013, and served on the Municipal Council of Newark for the Central Ward from 1998 to 2002.

Ketanji Brown Jackson: is an American attorney and jurist who has served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2021.[2] She is an associate justice-designate of the Supreme Court of the United States, having received Senate confirmation on April 7, 2022.[3][4]

Let America be America Again: A Langston Hughes poem published in 1935

As I Grew Older: A Langston Hughes published published in 1935

When does a war truly end? What becomes of those left standing and, the ghosts that remain? In 2001, Vietnam vet, David Moragne returned to Vietnam with his comrades with those questions. His film, Flashback: Summer Sail One Revisited documents what they discovered.

David Moragne, was born in Manhattan, raised in the Bronx, nurtured in Greenwood, S.C. and grew up in Dong Ha, RVN.

He is a retired visual facilitator and storyteller, who has lived an adventurous life before settling down with his family in California’s Eastbay community for the past forty years.

He is blessed wife an amazing wife, talented and loving family, and friends who make a difference.

David takes nothing for granted, and appreciates all his gifts and blessings.  For him, “Life Is Good!!!”

Flashback: Summer Sail One Revisited: On June 11th, 1967, a CH 46 Transport Helicopter call sign Bonnie Sue, with a four man crew from the HMM, 265th Marine Air Group went down while inserting a seven man recon team, call sign Summer Sail One from Third Force Reconnaissance Company in to their zone of operation, south of the DMZ and west of Con Thien, Vietnam. All aboard were killed, and there are bodies never recovered.

The accounts, recollections, and memories of this incident have crisscrossed thousands of miles, a lot of years, and affected many people. This is an American story, told in a common language of how some of those affected have tried to find understanding, acceptance, and closure.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in South Africa in 1996, to help heal the country by uncovering the truth about human rights violations during Apartheid.

Vietnam War: The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians.  

DMZ (Vietnam): was a demilitarized zone established as a dividing line between North and South Vietnam from July 1954 to 1976 as a result of the First Indochina War. During the Vietnam War (1955-1975) it became important as the battleground demarcation separating North from South Vietnamese territories. The zone ceased to exist with the reunification of Vietnam on July 2, 1976, though the area remains dangerous due to the numerous undetonated explosives it contains.

“grunts”: For the soldiers who served in the Vietnam War, the word grunt was not just a nickname but also a commentary on their status in the hierarchy of war. To be a grunt was to be in the infantry. It meant leaping out of helicopters into landing zones that were sometimes under enemy fire. 

MIA: Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire.  

KIA: Killed in action (KIA) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own personnel at the hands of enemy or hostile forces.[1] 

Balmy Alley: The street is located in the Mission District in San Francisco, California. The block long alley is the best place to see the most concentrated collection of murals in San Francisco. The murals began in the mid-80's as an expression of artists' outrage over human rights and political abuses in Central America. Today the alley contains murals on a myriad of styles and subjects from human rights to local gentrification.

Ka-Bar knives:  KA-BAR) is the contemporary popular name for the combat knife first adopted by the United States Marine Corps in November 1942 as the 1219C2 combat knife (later designated the USMC Mark 2 combat knife or Knife, Fighting Utility), and subsequently adopted by the United States Navy as the U.S. Navy utility knife, Mark 2.[

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Change the Story / Change the World is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.