Black Theatre & Dance Symposium 2022
Black Theatre & Dance Symposium 2022
Join us for the Black Theatre & Dance Symposium 2022 on Friday, April 15, 3 p.m.-9:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 16, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
The theme of this year's Black Theatre and Dance Symposium (BTDS) is "Resilience: Revive, Restore & Reconnect," dealing with the topic of how we will adapt, revise, move, bend and change to the new normal, with dynamic speakers, conversations and workshops. This year’s keynote speakers are KenYatta and Michelle Rogers, and our workshop leaders include Crystal Davis, Farah Lawal Harris (B.A. Theatre ’08) and Thembi Duncan (B.A. Theatre ’09).
Emphasizing the importance of artist-leaders, this symposium fosters dialogue and action among professionals, scholars and students who convene to discuss, devise and actualize efforts to influence and expand inclusive practices, civility and social well-being in the performing arts and beyond.
The symposium also coincides with the opening of our production of Lydia Diamond's Stick Fly on Friday, April 15 at 7:30PM. Stick Fly is also directed by keynote speaker KenYatta Rogers. You are encouraged to join us for this celebratory event.
Please note that masks are required in our classroom and studio spaces.
SCHEDULE (subject to change)
Friday, April 15th
3 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. – “Revive, Restore, Reconnect: Black Artistry Beyond Crisis” (Dance Theatre)
Deja Collins, Matré Grant, Shartoya Jn. Baptiste, Zavier Taylor; moderated by Jared Strange
4:30 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. – “Resilient Foundations: Scholarship and Pedagogy in Black Theatre and
Dance” (Dance Theatre)
Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Crystal Davis, Thembi Duncan, Julius B. Fleming, Jefferson Pinder, Fatima Quander; moderated by Jordan Ealey
7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. – Stick Fly by Lydia Diamond, directed by KenYatta Rogers (Dance Theatre)
Saturday, April 16th
9 a.m. - 10 a.m. – Breakfast and Registration (Dance Theatre)
10 a.m. - 11 a.m. – Keynote Address by KenYatta and Michelle Rogers (Gildenhorn Recital Hall)
11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. – Concurrent Workshops for Educators:
- Diversity, Equity, and Transformation in Dance Pedagogy (Dance Studio 1) - Crystal Davis, Frederick Curry & Nicole McClam
- Diversity, Equity, and Transformation in Theatre Pedagogy (Dance Studio 2) - Leayne Dempsey Freeman & Scot Reese
1 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. – Roundtable Discussion: Empowering the Community Through
- Theatre and Dance: A Follow-Up On DC Theatre Summit 2021 - Hosted by Thembi Duncan and members of the DC Theatre Summit (Farah Lawal Harris), Galvanize (Erika Rose) and The Welders (Sisi Reid).
2 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. – Concurrent Workshops for Educators
- Anti-Racism in Dance Practice (Studio 1)- Crystal Davis
- Abolishing Racism and Oppression in the Theatre Workplace (Studio 2) - Jared Shamberger & Brigitte Winter
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m. – Thriving As an Artist in an Uncertain World (Dance Theatre)
- Thembi Duncan
BIOGRAPHIES
Tẹmídayọ Amay (they/them) is a Trans Non-Binary writer, actor, producer, and queer activist born and raised in Washington, DC. Some highlighted works include School Girls: or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh (Round House Theatre, dir. Nicole A. Watson) in which they received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Performer; On Love by Mfoniso Udofia (MCC Theater, dir. Awoye Timpo); Everybody Black by Dave Harris (The Kennedy Center); Queering the Canon: Sondheim (Joe's Pub, pro. Ring of Keys, dir. Ann James), Will on the Hill, The Ruby Sunrise (Shakespeare Theatre Company, dir. Samantha Wyer Bello); Coffeehouse Chronicles #124 (La MaMa ETC, dir. Ping Chong); Foriwa (Classical Theatre of Harlem, dir. Goldie Patrick); Describe the Night by Rajiv Joseph (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company); Ay, Gerald by Vaughn Ryan (Signature Theatre); and She a Gem (The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, dir. Paige Hernandez); Tẹmídayọ Amay has been featured in American Theatre Magazine, Playbill, The Washington Post, and DC Theatre Scene, among other publications. They have produced alongside theatreWashington, TCG, and Longacre Lea. It is their hope to celebrate Black queer existence through their storytelling. Instagram: @temidayoma
Faedra Chatard Carpenter is a theatre and performance scholar, professional dramaturg, and cultural critic. An Associate Professor in the Department of Performing Arts at American University, Dr. Carpenter’s research and creative interests focus on the study of race, gender, class, and sexuality within both staged performances and in the performance practices of everyday life. As a professional dramaturg, Carpenter has worked on innumerable performance projects at venues such as Center Stage, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Mosaic Theatre Company, Theater J, Dance Place, Crossroads Theatre Company, and Arena Stage. Carpenter is the author of the award-winning book, Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance, and her scholarly analysis can be found in a number of anthologies and peer-reviewed journals such as the Cambridge Companion to American Theatre, Diverse Dramaturgy, College Literature, Theater Magazine, The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre, Theatre Survey, College Literature, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Theatre Topics, Women & Performance, and Callaloo. She earned her Ph.D. in Drama from Stanford University, her M.A. in Drama from Washington University, and her B.A. in English from Spelman College.
Frederick Curry is an associate professor of professional practice in the dance department at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. At Mason Gross, he has served as interim chair of dance, director of the Ed.M. program in dance education, and is director of the Polestar Pilates Teacher Training Program. An expert in dance pedagogy, Laban/Bartenieff studies and somatics, Frederick has led workshops and presented at conferences internationally including in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, South Korea, Switzerland, Uganda, the United Kingdom and throughout the United States. He is on faculty at the Dance Education Laboratory at the 92nd Street Y and is assistant editor for Dance Education in Practice journal, published by Taylor & Francis. Frederick served on the board of directors of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) and was a founding member of the NDEO Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Access Committee. He coordinated the modular certification program at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, is a Polestar Pilates educator and a National Pilates certification program commissioner.
Crystal Davis is a dancer, movement analyst and critical race theorist whose work has been renowned by an eclectic community of adjudicators and audiences from Donald McKayle to the royal family of Jodhpur, India. As a performer, her work spans an array of genres from modern dance companies including Notes in Motion to East Indian dance companies including Nayikas Dance Theater Company to her own postmodern choreography at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and Dance New Amsterdam. She has performed both her post-modern works and classical and folk forms of India across the country and abroad. Her creative work centers around the incongruities present between our daily behaviors and belief systems. She has conducted ethnographic research in Rajasthan, India on the relationship between religious beliefs and both creative and pedestrian movement. Her current research explores implicit bias in dance through a critical theory lens and how identity politics of privilege manifests in the body. Some of her recent publications include “Tendus and Tenancy: Black Dancers and the White Landscape of Dance Education” in the Palgrave Handbook of Race and Arts in Education and “Laying New Ground: Uprooting White Privilege and Planting Seeds of Equity and Inclusion” in Dance Education and Responsible Citizenship: Promoting Civic Engagement through Effective Dance Pedagogies.
Leayne C. Dempsey is the CEO of Theatre Major, LLC, an educational consulting company that advises and trains student actors applying to collegiate acting and musical theatre programs. She has used her theatre major in a variety of fields, including education, mental health, regional theatre, independent film, and arts administration. Her coaching and unique process for developing college audition repertoire has helped many students receive full artistic scholarships to some of the world’s top higher education theatre programs. She also has extensive knowledge of dramatic texts that include ethnically diverse characters and content, a disinvested specialization in the industry. She is the former President, President Advisor, and a Co-founder of the Maryland Theatre Education Association, and sat on the Fine Arts Advisory Panel for the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools. She is a Master Theatre Teacher for the Maryland State Department of Education. She sits on the Board of Visitors for the University of Maryland School of Theatre and Dance. Leayne received her M.A. in Mental Health Counseling from Lesley University, and completed her thesis entitled, "Using Drama Therapy with Active Duty Service Members Diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury," working alongside the Creative Forces Healing Arts Program team at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, on the Walter Reed National Naval Medical Center base, where she explored the use of the drama therapy in working with service members who have experienced traumatic brain injury. Leayne was an IB Theatre and English teacher for seven years in Montgomery County Public Schools. She directed a devised theatre piece entitled “Our Neverland,” at the Georgia Theatre Royal in Richmond, England. Leayne's regional theatre credits include theaters such as: Hanger Theater (The Piano Lesson) in New York, Olney Theatre Center (Little Shop of Horrors), Studio Theater (All That I Will Ever Be), John F. Kennedy Center (TYA The Secret Lives of White House Pets), and the African Continuum Theatre Company (Old Settler). Leayne is a proud member of Actor's Equity Association.
Thembi Duncan is an award-winning arts administrator, director, actor, playwright and teaching artist with 20 years of experience synthesizing theater, American history, and social justice in Washington, DC and Buffalo, NY. Over the course of her theater practice, she has directed and performed in numerous productions, most memorably of plays by Pulitzer Award-winning playwrights Lynn Nottage, Dael Orlandersmith, August Wilson and Ayad Akhtar. Leadership highlights include serving as director of arts engagement and education at Shea’s Performing Arts Center, Creative programs director of Young Playwrights’ Theater, producing artistic director of African Continuum Theatre Company, and lead teaching artist at historic Ford’s Theatre. Adjudication and mentorship efforts include projects with the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Prince George’s County Theatre Festival, the Mead Theatre Lab Program, the Junior Theater Festival and National History Day. She proudly served on the TheatreWashington Helen Hayes Awards board of governors for two terms and co-founded the biannual Black Theatre & Dance Symposium at the University of Maryland with Scot Reese.
Jordan Ealey is a doctoral candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies. Areas of research include black theatre and performance; black feminist theories and praxis; musical theatre history; popular music and entertainment; black girlhood studies; black critical theory; digital humanities; and dramaturgy. Jordan’s dissertation examines the politics, forms, and aesthetics of black women-authored musicals from the nineteenth century to the present. Currently, Jordan is an Assistant Editor at Theatre Journal to co-editor Dr. Laura Edmondson. Engaged in public scholarship, Jordan is the co-producer and co-host of Daughters of Lorraine, a podcast on black theatre through a black feminist lens, which is supported by HowlRound Theatre Commons. Jordan is also a freelance dramaturg, playwright, and cultural critic.
Julius B. Fleming, Jr. is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park. Specializing in Afro-Diasporic literatures and cultures, he has particular interests in performance studies, black political culture, diaspora, and colonialism, especially where they intersect with race, gender, and sexuality. Professor Fleming is the author of Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation (NYU Press 2022), and is beginning work on a second book project that explores the new geographies of colonial expansion and their impact on Afro-diasporic literary and cultural production. His work appears in journals like American Literature, American Literary History, South Atlantic Quarterly, Callaloo, and The Southern Quarterly. Having served as Associate Editor of Callaloo, Professor Fleming is currently serving as Associate Editor of Black Perspectives, the award-winning blog of the African American Intellectual History Society. He has been awarded fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute, and the Social Science Research Council.
Matré Grant is a first-year Ph.D. student in theatre and performance studies. She researches how race is performed in Broadway musicals from 1990 to present with particular focus on shows that have been influenced by Black diasporic music and culture. Her interests also include theatre casting, modern Blackface and Brownface at both the amateur and professional levels, the adaptation of musicals and operas from literature, and the intersection of musical theatre copyright and the digital consumption of musicals. A student of classical voice for twelve years, Matré continues to sing and occasionally music direct operas and musicals. In her "spare" time, she writes young adult fiction and poetry.
Farah Lawal Harris (she/her/hers) is a Kilroys List playwright, the Artistic Director of Young Playwrights’ Theater in Washington, DC, member of the third generation of The Welders, a director, and an actor. She is a member of Theatre Washington's Advisory Board and Helen Hayes Award Adjudication Committee; she also co-chaired the 2020 and 2022 DC Theatre Summit. She is a proud co-founder of the Washington, DC-based theatre companies, The Saartijie Project, and Wild Women Theatre, and a three-time individual artist grant recipient from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Farah's work has been performed at Arena Stage (The 51st State), The Kennedy Center's Theatre for Young Audiences ("Kimmy"), The University of Texas at Austin ("Kimmy"), Round House Theatre (Homebound), Rep Stage, Theater Alliance, Convergence Theatre, the DC Black Theatre Festival, the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference, the Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage New Play Festival, the Capital Fringe Festival, and multiple universities along the East Coast.
Born and raised in the picturesque island of Saint Lucia, Shartoya Jn. Baptiste’s spark for the performing arts ignited from the age of seven. She has represented Saint Lucia at numerous regional and international Cultural Dance Exchanges, and has performed and choreographed for national events, the Caribbean Premier League Saint Lucian cheerleaders and multiple Soca artistes. When Shartoya is not performing, she can be found in the theatre or the design studio. Currently, Shartoya is a first year MFA Scenic Design candidate at the University of Maryland. Local credits include Sweat (Towson University), Antigone (Towson University), P.Nokio (Imagination Stage) and By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (University of Maryland) and Assistant Scenic Design credits include Beastgirl (The Kennedy Center). In her spare time, she enjoys philanthropy and creating dance concept videos that merge the worlds of choreography and scenic design which she shares on Youtube – shr758. One of her biggest accomplishments to date is “The SHR Experience” – a one-day dance workshop where international choreographers visit Saint Lucia to teach various dance styles, and in turn, learn a Saint Lucian cultural dance. The proceeds from The SHR Experience are injected into the Saint Lucian dance community.
Nicole Y. McClam, M.F.A., C.M.A. enjoys exploring the awesomeness of dance with her students as an assistant professor at Queensborough Community College. In a 20+ year performing career, she is a founding member of B3W Performance Group and dances with Kayla Hamilton and Keith Thompson/danceTactics. Nicole’s research interests spring from her interest in social justice. She has presented on dance and motherhood, anti-racist praxis in composition and dance history classes and zombies. She received her M.F.A. in dance while pursuing her studies in the Laban Certification Program at the University of Maryland at College Park. She earned her B.F.A. in dance performance and a B.A. in chemistry from East Carolina University.
Jefferson Pinder’s work provokes commentary about race and struggle. Focusing primarily with neon, found objects, and video, Pinder investigates identity through the most dynamic circumstances and materials. From uncanny video portraits associated with popular music to durational work that puts the black body in motion, his work examines physical conditioning that reveals an emotional response. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo shows including exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, Showroom Mama in Rotterdam, Netherlands, The Phillips Collection, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Pinder’s work was featured in the 2016 Shanghai Biennale, and at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. In 2016, he was awarded a United States Artist’s Joyce Fellowship Award in the field of performance and was a 2017 John S. Guggenheim Fellowship.
Sisi Reid (she/her) is an internationally accomplished multidisciplinary theater artist from Norfolk, Virginia and Wheaton, Maryland who practices theater as tools for collective liberation, healing, and youth empowerment. Sisi’s art is grounded in the values of justice, community building, and education instilled by her family and upbringing. She is an actor, writer, playwright, dancer, director, spoken word poet, Emcee, facilitator, teaching artist, educator, and applied theater practitioner. She has taught and performed in Washington D.C. Metropolitan area, Maryland, New Jersey, Michigan, London, and Brazil. Sisi is a Producing Playwright with The Welders, a local playwrights collective. She was a commissioned playwright with Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Next Now Fest, Imagination Stage, as well as a Maryland States Arts Council Independent Artist Awardee. In her storytelling, she often centers Black femmes, girls, & women; nurturing spaces that are queer, Black and abundantly joyFULL.
Scot Reese is a professor of theatre and head of performance at the University of Maryland, College Park.. Professional theater credits include productions from Los Angeles to New York. Television credits include daytime dramas, situation comedies, variety specials and commercials. Recent credits include premieres of Colossal, Embrace, Etudes for the Sleep of Others and Blues Journey at the Kennedy Center; the premieres of The Waiter and Blackballin' at Arena Stage; 24/7, 365 at the Theatre of First Amendment; Dr. of Alcantara at Strathmore Music Center; Once On This Island and Crumbs From the Table of Joy at the Round House Theatre; Pretty Fire and From the Mississippi Delta for the African Continuum Theatre Company; The Heidi Chronicles and Barefoot in the Park (with Laura Linney and Eric Stoltz) at LA Theatre Works; A Raisin in the Sun at Olney Theatre Center.
Michelle Rogers is an actress, acting coach, and TV attorney with over 30 years experience in theatre and TV law. As a performing artist, she has worked with The InSeries to devise and reimagine “ plays with music” (such as Stormy Weather and From U Street To The Cotton Club) as well as traditional operas such as Black Flute which deconstructed the racist and sexist elements of Mozart’s The Magic Flute and reimagined the plot with a nod to this country’s most recent racial reckoning. Michelle’s acting credits include Stormy Weather (InSeries), From U Street to the Cotton Club (InSeries), Rabbit Summer (Ally Theatre), Blues For a Royal Flush (National Portrait Gallery), For Colored Girls… (Forum Theatre), Radio Golf (Studio Theatre), From U Street to the Cotton Club (In Series), Spunk (Tribute Productions -- u/s)., Raisin In The Sun (African Continuum Theatre), Blues For an Alabama Sky (Everyman Theatre), Lyle, the Crocodile (Imagination Stage), Purlie Victorious (DCAC/Theatre De Jour), and Measure For Measure (Washington Shakespeare). A graduate of Spelman College, Michelle was voted Best Actress in a Leading Role in Atlanta for playing the title role in Angelina Grimke’s Rachel. Michelle also holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Pittsburgh and a JD in Law from the University of Maryland. After a 20 year career with Black Entertainment Television, Michelle is now lead attorney and head of the TV Legal Division for National Geographic. She currently resides with her family in the District of Columbia where she has served the arts community as performer, promoter, and even as board member for African Continuum Theatre Co.
KenYatta Rogers received a BA in English from Clark Atlanta University and an MFA in Acting from the University of Pittsburgh. After a brief teaching assignment at South Carolina State University, he joined the faculty of Montgomery College where he currently serves as coordinator for the Theatre discipline. He was named 2014 Maryland Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. KenYatta has been a guest artist/presenter at Yale University, Syracuse University, George Washington University, Indiana State University, Clemson University, Frederick Community College, Lehigh University, Howard University, Georgetown University, University of Maryland, and Catholic University. He has also led workshops for the Maryland High School Theatre Festival (now The Maryland Thespians) and was a featured guest artist/presenter at more than 30 Maryland and District of Columbia schools promoting theatre education and the integration of theatre techniques into the core curriculum. KenYatta has been an adjudicator for the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival, the Folger Theatre’s High School Shakespeare Festival, and the NAACP’s ACT-SO (Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological, and Scientific Olympics) program as well as a teaching-artist for the Helen Hayes Awards Theatre Legacy Program. He has served as a panelist for both the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and the District of Columbia Commission for the Arts grants review boards. KenYatta is a professional theatre, film, and voice-over actor and director. KenYatta, a member of AEA (Actors’ Equity Association), has directed or performed in over 50 professional theatre productions and has over 50 film, television, and radio credits including voiceover work with Graphic Audio and with the National Endowment for the Arts BIG READ series. KenYatta has served as an artistic associate to African Continuum Theatre Company and Round House Theatre and is the past president of the Board of Directors for the Welders Playwrights’ Collective.
Jared Shamberger is a proud DMV resident who studied acting and directing at Bowie State University. In 2021, Jared produced his first film, The B Word, as a third-generation member of the playwriting collective, The Welders. He has also penned the short plays Donuts & Dilemmas, Virginia is for Lovers, Brass Tacks, and Water Break. He has written and performed two solo shows, 12 and Unsaid. When not in a theater, Jared can most likely be found working as Education Director for Young Playwrights’ Theater where he designs and implements playwriting and storytelling programs for young people and adults. He co-wrote an article for American Theatre magazine called "Facing Our Failure: The Power of Acknowledging Racism Within the American Theatre" based on his work serving as an antiracism consultant for arts organizations. Before joining YPT, Jared spent five years working for Kaiser Permanente as an educational theater specialist, facilitating their sexual health and anti-bullying programs. Jared is incredibly proud of his work as a founding member of Brave Soul Collective, a DC-based Black LGBTQ+ arts organization. To learn more about Jared and what he’s working on next, just ask him.
Jared Strange is a Ph.D. candidate in Theatre & Performance Studies program and a writing fellow at the University of Maryland’s Graduate School Writing Center. His primary research examines how soccer’s cultural, political, and economic capital is contested and advanced in performance, both on the pitch and on the stage. Jared is also a dramaturg, playwright, and educator working in the Washington, D.C. area. He is currently the Dramaturg for the Teens Behind the Scenes program at The National Theatre and has served worked with such organizations as Rorschach Theatre Company, Young Playwrights’ Theater, and the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Learn more at jaredrobertstrange.wordpress.com.
Zavier Augustus Lee Taylor is a multimedia artist and designer with a focus on interactive and impactful video design for live performance. He has a passion for being hands-on in the creation of new work. Zavier spends his time experimenting with motion graphics, visual art, videography, video editing, and sound design. Zavier also operates a multimedia production company known as ZALT Productions. ZALT Productions is a creative entity that enables people and businesses to realize their potential through design. Zavier is eager to connect with and build a network of creatives both locally (DMV), nationally and abroad. He has worked with a number of venues such as Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Shakespeare Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Playmakers Rep, Geva Theatre, Baltimore CenterStage, Studio Theatre and more. Learn more about Zavier and his previous work by searching #ZALTproductions on social media platforms. Instagram: @zaltslaw. Website: https://zavier.myportfolio.com/
Fatima Quander is a well accomplished professional actor and proud member of both Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). She has performed with FRESHH Inc. Theatre Company, DC Hip Hop Theatre Festival, Rep Stage, Everyman Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage Education, Theater of the First Amendment, the Folger Elizabethan Theatre, Imagination Stage, and Discovery Theater; she has also performed in house and on tour with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Additionally, she has appeared in a number of national and regional commercials including Toyota, Under Armour and Dick’s Sporting Goods, DC Health Link, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, and Navy Federal Credit Union (among others). Quander previously taught at Howard Community College and also teaches classes at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Additionally, she serves as a guest instructor at Beloit College, her alma mater. Quander is a company member with Young Playwrights' Theater (YPT) and served as the Director of The Vanguard, FRESHH Inc. Theatre Company’s Black women’s acting ensemble, where she lead master classes and workshops on theatre techniques, professions, and the business of acting. As a teaching artist, Quander works with a number of theatres and programs throughout the Washington, DC area including FRESHH Inc.’s Griot Girls, Everyman Theatre, Poetry Out Loud, Folger Shakespeare Library’s McKee Fellows Program and Secondary School Shakespeare Festival, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Sitar Arts Center, Jr. Discovery at Georgetown University, and YPT.
Brigitte Winter has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, arts administration, financial management, fundraising and strategic communications in the DC region. She is also a published writer of short fiction, a metalsmith, and a photographer. In 2014, Brigitte and her partner, Dustin Blottenberger, co-founded No Discipline Arts Collective, an artist-led initiative producing pop-up shows that break down traditional boundaries between artists and disciplines. The capacity of storytelling to connect, disrupt, inspire and incite is central to Brigitte’s art and her activism. She holds a B.F.A. in theatre (summa cum laude) from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), a certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown University and a Master’s in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University, where she continued to work as an adjunct instructor through 2017. Brigitte is the proud recipient of the 2013 Outstanding Alumni of the Year Award from the UMBC Alumni Association, the 2013 Outstanding Student Award from Georgetown University and the 2012 Georgetown Social Impact Award for her commitment to creating positive social change as a communicator.
Galvanize DC - Founded in the Summer of 2005 in DC, Galvanize DC is a support network of Black theater and film artists in the DMV. They seek to create a nurturing community and safe space where all Black artists (without exclusion) can address achievements and challenges.
Theatre Summit - An annual convening of theatre-makers in the Washington, DC-area, the Theatre Summit fosters collaboration, conversation and shared understanding. The themes of the summit vary each year, and it consistently holds space to discuss equity, anti-racism and inclusion. Please stay tuned for the date and other details for the 2022 Theatre Summit. If you are interested in participating on the Theatre Summit committee, please contact Amy Austin.
The Welders - The Welders is a DC-based playwrights’ collective. Their inclusive model is essential in their tagline, “Pass It On.” Instead of remaining a closed unit, the company is constantly looking for ways to share the power by amplifying the creativity of other DC artists and community organizations alongside their own work. The culmination of each cohort’s tenure is “passing on” the entire organization, from board to bank account, to a new cohort of playwrights every 3 to 4 years. When artistic ownership of the company remains in reach to many artists, this radical sharing of power keeps the company vitally connected to the community. The Welders was conceived and created in 2013 by a collective of Washington, DC playwrights who sought a way to empower local writers and it was a clarion call for writers to create by taking the power into their own hands. www.thewelders.org