Banner Photo: Moderating a post-show conversation with Kristina Wong and Chay Yew at New York Theatre Workshop, 2021. Photo Credit: Lia Chang

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & CONNECTIVITY PHILOSOPHY

Community Engagement extends beyond engagement surrounding a theatre's productions, openly inviting local leaders, non-profits, and educators to make theatre and theatre education accessible for their respective communities. Engagement practices center the ideas of empowering fellow humans through theatre and creating a sense of belonging at an arts institution through years of trust building. Theatre is but a tool, and we hope that through our collaborations folks with whom we’ve collaborated feel that they themselves can tell their own stories through the performing arts. With community collaborators, I aim to create intergenerational, racially diverse, gender expansive, and intersectional spaces, and invite into these spaces many who have never thought of collaborating with a theatre or an arts institution.​

Click on the tabs to see diverse engagement and connectivity work I do.

• Community Engagement
• Audience Engagement
• Speaking Engagements
• NYTW Partner Organizations

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The joy of working as an artivist at a non-profit is that I have the rare chance to create community programs with local leaders and the community members themselves. Here are some of the programs that I've helped develop, manage, and produce as the Community Engagement Coordinator at New York Theatre Workshop.

People's Theatre Project

NYTW Costume Shop Manager Jeffrey Wallach teaches our people the basics of sewing in the costume shop.

Founded by Mino Lora, People's Theatre Project provides free social justice theatre education to young people in Washington Heights. The program centers immigrant and Latiné/x/a/o youth, and gives them the tools to be civic-lead artists. In collaboration with their academy, New York Theatre Workshop provides Mentoring Workshops for its students, through which they are introduced to different careers in the theatre. NYTW Staff mentor the students themselves and the lessons are completely integrated into the academy curriculum. I started the formal relationship in 2020 and worked closely with the PTP Education Team to curate the workshops. I sit down with all staff members and teaching artists to plan out the lesson plans before the students arrive.

Pen American, Dreaming Out Loud

DREAMing Out Loud is a paid, tuition-free creative writing workshop series for migrant writers, primarily those who are undocumented, DACA recipients, and/or DREAMers who came to the United States when they were children. By providing community and professional support to the next generation of immigrant writers, the program seeks to counter anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. and to amplify the voices of many living in this country who are marginalized because of their immigration status. Since the creation of the playwriting program, we have served four cohorts of young immigrant artists with the help of National Queer Theatre, The Mayor's Office of Arts Entertainment and Media, and The Drama Bookshop.

Poetic Theater Productions, Veteran Voices

Veteran Voices amplifies the voices of U.S. Veterans and their families through theatrical performances, showcases, and workshops. They recognize that veterans’ stories have fundamentally shaped the landscape of theater in the past and we aim to revitalize their essential inclusion in today’s genre of poetic theater. In the playwriting program, a professional writer teaches and gives tools to veterans wishing to become professional writers. After eight week course, Veterans' 10 minute plays are performed with actors from the Broadway and Off-Broadway community.

For the Culture @ NYTW

Through the For The Culture Series (FTC), NYTW seeks to bridge the gap between the world we know and the world we are actively striving to build – where we harness the power of theatre to deepen human connections by learning and growing from the lived experiences of each other; connect through art, shared customs, traditions and heritage(s); and where we amplify artists and work by traditionally underrepresented groups or individuals, creating access to the Workshop for historically marginalized communities in order to build and sustain authentic relationships with our fellow community members and theatergoers.

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What kind of events are included in the For The Culture series?

I work one-on-one with each community partner to shape engagement in the way that we collectively feel would be most beneficial for audiences, community members, and artists. I create a full curation of events for For The Culture, and plan, manage, and fully produce each event. The events we typically produce are, but are not limited to affinity nights (ex. AAPI Night, Black Theatre Night, LGBTQ Night), networking nights, book clubs, open mics, masterclasses, communal art making, food gatherings, community open houses, large show themed nights, dance parties, and pre- or post-show conversations. All events (ranging from 8 to 12) are free and participants are not required to see a show at New York Theatre Workshop. I hope all engagement and connectivity events create multiple ways for someone to become part of the workshop family.

Dr. John H. Bracy, Jr. and Sonia Sanchez responding on a panel to Ifa Bayeza's new play.

Introducing a new work by playwright and director Ifa Bayeza in 2016.

Have moderated or been featured as a panelist on numerous public discussions at:

• New York Theatre Workshop
• Roundabout Theatre
• Broadway Con
• Theatre Community Group National Conference
• NYC Arts in Education
• Kennedy Center Arts Education
• Skylight Theatre
• PRELUDE Festival
• Theatre Communications Group Conference

...and more.

I have had the pleasure of being in public speaking engagements with folks such as...

• ​Celine Song (playwright, Endlings; writer & dir., Past Lives)
• Hansol Jung (playwright, Wolf Play, Merry Me)
• David Bengali (projection designer, We Live in Cairo)
• Bradley King (lighting designer, Hadestown)
• Mona Pirnot (playwright, I Love You So Much I Could Die)
• David Harris (playwright, Tambo and Bones)
• Max Yu (playwright, Nightwatch)
• Ben West (Musical Theatre Historian)
• Martyna Majok (playwright, Sanctuary City, Cost of Living)
• Kristina Wong (performer, Kristina Wong: Sweatshop Overlord)
• Kristoffer Diaz (playwright, Hell's Kitchen)
• Aleshea Harris (playwright, On Sugarland)
• Whitney White (director, On Sugarland​)
• David Henry Hwang (playwright, M. Butterly; Yellow Face)
• Chay Yew (director, Kristina Wong: Sweatshop Overlord​)

...and more.

Some of the topics of I've organized and/or moderated...

• Asian American Activism, in conversation with Kristina Wongs: Sweatshop Overlord
• Black U.S. Military Veterans and Queerness, in conversation with Aleshea Harris' On Sugarland
• Are Video Games the Future of Theatre? with Celine Song, Max Yu, a.k. payne, and Dave Harris
• Sex Positive Education, in conversation with Liliana Padilla's How to Defend Yourself
• The Art of Solo Writing, with Mona Pirnot, Heidi Schreck, Ryan Haddad, and Dael Orlandersmith

Below are the organizations I've collaborated with around productions at New York Theatre Workshop from early 2020 to present. This does not include partners made during the time of the shutdown and the production of Zoom theatre.

January – March 2020 
Endlings 
Asian American Arts Alliance  
Consortium of Asian American Theatres and Artists  
Korea Society   
   
Sanctuary City (2020 production)
PEN America  
Immigration Equality  
Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs  
People's Theatre Project  
Synagogue Coalition for the Refugee and Immigrant Crisis  
Raices  
New York Theatre Salon  
Global Gab 
 
Season 2021-22 
Semblance 
Poetic Theatre Productions 

Sanctuary City (2021 production)
PEN America  
Immigration Equality  
Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs  
People's Theatre Project  
Synagogue Coalition for the Refugee and Immigrant Crisis  
Raices
New York Theatre Salon  
Global Gab 
   
Kristina Wong Sweatshop Overlord  
Asian American Arts Alliance  
Consortium of Asian American Theatres and Artists  
Auntie Sewing Square  
Asian American Writers' Workshop  
  
On Sugarland  
Poetic Theater Productions  
Veterans Voices  
Black Boys Do Theater 
Black Girls Do Theater  
   
Dreaming Zenzile  
National Black Theatre  
Everything Africa  
The Africa Center  
Poetic Theater Productions  
Black Boys Do Theater  
Black Girls Do Theater  
 
Season 2022-23 
american (tele)visions  
Raices  
PEN America  
DREAMing Out Loud  
Breaking the Binary Theatre Company  
The Mexican Studies Institute at The City University of New York  
Latinx Playwrights Circle  
The Sống Collective  
  
How to Defend Yourself  
Breaking the Binary  
Center for Anti-Violence Education  
Speak About It  
Crime Victims Treatment Center  
New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault  
Latinx Playwrights Circle  
   
Half-God of Rainfall  
The Africa Center  
PEN America  
Poetic Theater Productions  
New York Poetry Society 
 
Season 2023-24 
Merry Me  
Cubbyhole  
Rise Theatre Directory  
The Gray Mare  
Lambda Literary  
Sidney’s Five  
The Center  
National Queer Theatre  
Henrietta Hudson  
The Bush  
Center of Anti-Violence Education  
Ring of Keys  
 
I Love You So Much I Could Die  
NYU Drama Therapy Department  
Shakespeare and Co Bookstore  
  
Here There are Blueberries  
FASPE  
US Holocaust Memorial Museum  
  
Seasons 2024-25 
We Live in Cairo  
Tahrir Institute of Middle East Policy  
Dartmouth College and the HOP Center  
Noor Theatre Company  
MENA Artist Collective  
Tarab NYC  
Leylit 
CUNY Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center
​Horus Cafe on B