#HealMeToo: Insights, Art & Activism to Change Our Culture

Hear two experts in the art of personal storytelling consider how telling and listening to our stories may be healing.

With a live audience at the #HealMeToo Festival, Founder and Artistic Director Hope Singsen interviewed: 

• Sarah Austin Jenness, Executive Producer of The Moth -- a 21 year old arts organization and home of The Moth Radio Hour, The Moth Podcast, and over 600 live storytelling events worldwide each year, and
• Playwright Katie Cappiello, whose plays about teen sexuality, based on their own first-hand accounts, have been widely toured and praised.

Together, Jenness and Cappiello have decades of experience working with people to tell brave personal stories, often for the first time. They share examples and observations about the process of expressing, crafting, and telling deeply personal stories, whether about sexual and gendered violence or other forms of trauma. As theater artists, Cappiello and host Singsen also share first-hand observations of the ways such stories can sometimes be transformative for artists and audiences alike.

A few of the topics they discuss:

• What makes Moth stories successful for teller and audience alike?
• Challenges that can arise when telling stories of past traumas.
• How the vulnerability of "telling on yourself" and "speaking from the scar, not the wound" can open doors to healing.
• What it's like to help teens get empowered and activated, finding their voice.
• Ways that survivors also find healing by letting others perform their stories.
• And much more. 

The #HealMeToo Podcast is hosted by Hope Singsen--the artist, creativity researcher and survivor-activist who founded the #HealMeToo Festival in NYC this Spring.

Subscribe now. Let's talk about how we can #HealMeToo.

Find the #HealMeToo Podcast on Apple Podcasts at bit.ly/hm2pod. Or visit healmetoopodcast.com to find links to other platforms.

On the episode details page for this interview, you'll find Sarah and Katie's biographies, plus video of Katie Cappiello's teen actors discussing rape culture, masculinity, and what feminism means to them as young men and people of color.

You'll also find a page with videos of many performances at the Festival, and can join our email list to hear about future pop-up #HealMeToo Festival events.

Interview recorded & prepped by Delaney Hafener
Edited by Hope Singsen
Music performed by Micah Burgess:
If I Can by Hope Singsen & Dillon Kondor
Rockabye by Hope Singsen, Dillon Kondor & Micah Burgess
Gorgeous Fire by Hope Singsen & Dillon Kondor

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Answering a question from a French audience member who followed their Mattress Performance protest throughout 2014-15, Emma shares stories about two of the most surprising, authentic and positive interactions with strangers while carrying the mattress at Columbia University.

Subscribe now. Let's talk about how we can #HealMeToo.

Listen and subscribe to the #HealMeToo Podcast on Apple Podcasts at bit.ly/hm2pod. Or visit healmetoopodcast.com to find links to other platforms.

On our site, you can find detailed episode notes, including Emma's bio and video of Emma accepting the first #HealMeToo Trailblazer Award at the #HealMeToo Festival! Plus you'll find videos of performances at the Festival, and can join our email list to hear about future pop-up #HealMeToo Festival events.

Interview recorded & prepped by Delaney Hafener
Closing music performed by Micah Burgess:
Rockabye by Hope Singsen, Dillon Kondor & Micah Burgess

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World-famous artist and activist Emma Sulkowicz debunks misconceptions about their protest work "Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)" in which they carried a mattress from  2014 to 2015 at Columbia University, sparking a movement against rape on campuses worldwide -- and shares personal stories and insights about the healing process they experienced while creating that work.

The #HealMeToo Podcast is hosted by Hope Singsen--the artist, creativity researcher and survivor-activist who founded the #HealMeToo Festival in NYC this Spring.

Subscribe now. Let's talk about how we can #HealMeToo.

Find the #HealMeToo Podcast on Apple Podcasts at bit.ly/hm2pod. Or visit healmetoopodcast.com to find links to other platforms.

On our site, you can find detailed episode notes, including Emma's bio and video of Emma accepting the first #HealMeToo Trailblazer Award at the #HealMeToo Festival! Plus you can watch videos of performances at the Festival, and join our email list to hear about future pop-up #HealMeToo Festival events.

Interview recorded & prepped by Delaney Hafener
Edited by Hope Singsen
Music performed by Micah Burgess:
If I Can by Hope Singsen & Dillon Kondor
Rockabye by Hope Singsen, Dillon Kondor & Micah Burgess
Gorgeous Fire by Hope Singsen & Dillon Kondor

Support the show

Subscribe now to get #HealMeToo Podcast Extras throughout Season One with longer excerpts of the plays, monologues, poems, songs and more heard at the #HealMeToo Festival. In order of appearance, this episode features the following excerpts:
****Scaffolding, with music by Thomas Jacobsen and lyrics by Dana Aber, from the soloshow Dana Aber’s Baggage at the Door, presented in the variety show Self / Worth, curated by Hope Singsen.
****Through the I's, devised and performed by the students of Smash Arts Productions at Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School, based on the text of Emily Doe's testimony in the Brock Turner case, and presented as part of Opening Night: NYC Teens.
****Till Hell Freezes Over by Tonya Pinkins, directed by Lili Stiefel, featuring Rachael Holmes & Annie McGreevey as part of Truth & Reconciliation of Womyn, curated by Tonya Pinkins.
****An Act of Love, written and performed by Zainab Mabizari in Self / Worth.
****Do You Want Me To Stop? written and performed by Maybe Burke, presented in Self / Worth.
****The Grandmothers by Kristine M. Reyes, directed by Kat Yen, featuring Akiko Hiroshima as part of Truth & Reconciliation of Womyn.
****The Dues That Must Be Paid, written and performed by Yvette Heyligger and directed by John Scutchins in Self / Worth.
****SKIN written and performed by Hope Singsen.
****Scarcity Freezer, written and performed by Glenn Marla, presented in Self / Worth.

Subscribe now. Let's talk about how we can #HealMeToo.

Listen and subscribe to the #HealMeToo Podcast on Apple Podcasts at bit.ly/hm2pod. Or visit healmetoopodcast.com to find links to other platforms.

On our site, you can find detailed episode notes, watch videos of performances at the Festival, and join our email list to hear about future pop-up #HealMeToo Festival events.

Support the show

Hear from the 50+ artists, experts and activists who performed in the first-ever #HealMeToo Festival or joined panels and participatory workshops to empower survivors and help inspire change.

In this preview of the Podcast, you'll hear (in order of appearance):
-Tony-winning actor, playwright, producer & activist Tonya Pinkins.
-Lindsay Lederman, Clinical Director of The Art Therapy Project.
-The Moth's Executive Producer Sarah Austin Jenness.
-Celebrated playwright Katie Cappiello of the highly-acclaimed teen shows "Slut" and "Now That We're Men."
-Survivor advocate and prevention educator Eric McGriff of NYC's Crime Victims Treatment Center.
-World-famous artist and activist Emma Sulkowicz, renowned for their protest work "Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)" in which they carried a mattress from  2014 to 2015 at Columbia University, sparking a movement against rape on campuses around the globe.

The #HealMeToo Podcast is hosted by Hope Singsen--the artist, creativity researcher and survivor-activist who founded the #HealMeToo Festival in NYC this Spring.

Subscribe now. Let's talk about how we can #HealMeToo.

Find the #HealMeToo Podcast on Apple Podcasts at bit.ly/hm2pod. Or visit healmetoopodcast.com to find links to other platforms.

On our site, you'll also find detailed episode notes, can watch videos of performances at the Festival, and join our email list to hear about future pop-up #HealMeToo Festival events.

Interviews recorded & prepped by Delaney Hafener
Edited by Hope Singsen
Music performed by Micah Burgess:
If I Can by Hope Singsen & Dillon Kondor

Support the show