Creative Tools for Critical Times
Master Classes with Devised Theatre Innovators
On this page, you will find information about the presenters and their Master Classes. At the end of this note, you’ll find a link to apply for the next upcoming session.
OVERVIEW: In this series of monthly, online Master Classes, participants will have an opportunity to learn a variety of ways to create community-based theatre for social justice. They will practice skills in political humor, storytelling, indigenous methodologies, collaborative playwriting & dramaturgy, best practices in partnering with stakeholders, and more. The topics explored will include impactful political activism; community-building; racial, disability and environmental justice; as well as LGBTQ+, women’s, immigration and voting rights; and more! All of the sessions will be highly interactive.
All of the Master Classes will take place from 1pm to 4pm (Pacific) on the dates listed below. These workshops are designed primarily for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for recent graduates and early career artists and activists. All of the sessions are free. Prior registration is required.
You can join us for a bunch of sessions or just one. Applications for a “Certificate in Devising Theatre for Social Justice” from Fringe Benefits closed on December 21, 2023, and a wonderfully diverse and talented cohort of participants joined us from the United States, Egypt, the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, England, and Canada.
Please Contact Us if you would like to receive updates &/or sign up for a Master Class!
“In the Break | Like Jazz”
January 28, 2024
“In the Break | Like Jazz” uses elements of Theatrical Jazz, including vulnerability, improvisation, innovation, virtuosity and collaboration. Participants work with writing prompts, embodied practices, telling their stories, and in-depth conversations around identities, histories, body truths, cultures, traditions, workplace ethos, communities and life mission.
Doris Duke Performing Artist & United States Artists Fellow
and
Author of Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Ase, and the Power of the Present Moment
MINNESOTA
February 17, 2024
Auburn University’s Mosaic Theatre Company devises group performances about issues of social justice. In this workshop, we will learn consensus-building tools that the group practices to choose topics and work through the initial processes of narrowing a topic, choosing the best form, and finding the key questions that will help us shape the work.
Associate Professor of Theatre, Auburn University
Co-Artistic Director, Mosaic Theatre Company
ALABAMA
March 9, 2024
Participants will be guided through the process of collective devising, listening to the body and centering play. The Master Class uses the Náhuatl concept of Nepantla, meaning in-between, to explore and create theatrical, narrative and performative structures. The class is physical and invites students to embrace the notion of writing on their feet.
Assistant Professor of Voice and Acting
Department of Theatre & New Dance @ California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
CALIFORNIA
April 21, 2024
Too often non-disabled people in theater aren’t imaginative (or experienced) enough to regard disability as a performance option rather than a directorial obstacle. This workshop will be an intense and informed brainstorming session in which participants will explore creative ways disability has been and can be integrated into productions to invigorate tired old tropes of theater.
Donna Marie NuddProfessor, School of Communication, Florida State University and Executive Director, Mickee Faust Club
and
Solo Performance Artist. Co-founder / Head Cheese / Artistic Director, Mickee Faust Club
FLORIDA
MAY 19, 2024
Cairo-based artivist, Dalia will share tales of theatre-making during times of extreme political changes in Egypt. She’ll introduce some techniques to free the imagination and create theatre even during intense circumstances.
Dalia BasiounyWriter, Director, Educator, Translator and Eco-farmer
CAIRO, EGYPT
“Speaking Their Language”
June 22, 2024
In this workshop, we will explore strategies and practice for identifying a community’s metalanguage and implementing it to accurately represent them. We will focus on Playwriting in Community-Based Theatre.
Lecturer for Cal Poly Pomona’s Department of Theatre and New Dance
Independent Community Based Theatre Artist, Actor, Playwright and Director.
CALIFORNIA
“Tools for Political Humor Writing”
July 7, 2024
A workshop for participants who are new to writing comedy or curious about strategies for incorporating humor into writing about seemingly unfunny subjects. Participants will be presented with my personal rubric of strategies and some exercises to hone the “eye” for funny.
Pulitzer Prize Finalist, performance artist, comedian, writer, elected representative, & food bank influencer
CALIFORNIA
“From One to Many: Deep Listening and Collaborative Storytelling”
August 11, 2024
Active listening is a deep and difficult skill to learn for social justice-oriented theatre making. This workshop will focus on the practice of deep listening and engage the ethically challenging process of embodying another’s story.
Associate Professor of Theatre, Miami University
OHIO
“Just Act, Go Vote: A Zoom ‘Power Bar'”
September 15, 2024
In this workshop, you will learn several techniques to create Forum theatre about why teens don’t vote. You’ll walk away with cool, simple tools for gathering and homing in on your group’s social injustice topic, as well as facilitating and unpacking Forum improvisations.
Founding Executive and Artistic Director, JustAct
PENNSYLVANIA
“Community-based Theatre: International Project Planning and Execution”
October 13, 2024
Based on his experience participating in and leading international community-based theatre projects in Zimbabwe and Colombia, Professor Solano will share case studies, devising exercises and tips for securing project funding.
Chair, Department of Theatre & New Dance @ California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
CALIFORNIA
“Connecting the Dots: Spitballing & Ensemble-Building”
* BONUS WORKSHOP for CT4CT Certificate Candidates & Past CT4CT Participants*
November 17, 2024
Participants in this Bonus Workshop will engage in a variety of ensemble-building games and engage in lively conversations exploring diverse approaches to fostering thoughtful, inclusive and joyful collaborations. In brief, we will spend time in community while adding new games and exercises to our ensemble-building toolkits.
Artistic Director of Fringe Benefits Theatre, Educator, Theatre Artist & Collaboration Facilitator
Peyton MatikMulti-Disciplinary Artist & Expressive Therapist
California & Illinois
“TeAda Methodology Workshop Intensive”
December 14, 2024
Participants will be introduced to TeAda’s devising methodology which is based on decolonization practices that encourage participants to share their personal experiences and knowledge. These include social justice-based movement and theater games used by ensembles of color such as Urban Bush Women, Carpetbag Theater, Teatro Campesino, Cornerstone Theater and Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed.
Founding Artistic Director, TeAda Productions
CALIFORNIA
“Devising Access: Creative Collaboration for Disability Inclusion”
* BONUS WORKSHOP *
January 12, 2025
How can we invite disabled voices into our work? It starts with making our offerings accessible. This workshop provides an actionable framework for creating access and inclusion in the theatre, and guides participants through the collaborative process of identifying accommodations.
Expressive Arts Therapist-in-Training (Lesley University), Theatre Artist, Educator, Accessibility Advocate
OHIO
“Climate Change and Storytelling: Beginning with the Self”
January 26, 2025
Participants will learn how to effectively use relevant facts and information and their personal background to create solo and/or group pieces that theatrically and persuasively address Climate Change.
Producing Artistic Director, That Uppity Theatre Company, Director, Climate Change Theatre Action St. Louis
MISSOURI / NEW YORK
“Collaborative Writing and Self-Representation”
February 23, 2025
“Fascism denies the humanity of its victims, labeling them as subhuman or unworthy of consideration, justifying their persecution and exploitation.” ~ Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them
In the context of our polarized national climate and the incoming administration’s propensity to vilify whole groups of people, hearing directly from those in maligned situations such as incarceration and migration is vital. This workshop focuses on ways that pairs of writers, one of whom is in such circumstances, can communicate their humanity that secondhand, politically-motivated, often sensationalist narratives do not (e.g., tales of immigrants eating their pets). While the techniques can be used by any pair or threesome of people who want to write collaboratively, as we will explore in this workshop, I am most interested in their capacity for self-representation by people unlikely to be part of public conversations otherwise and more likely to be vilified through secondhand representation. But this workshop will be a place to simply experiment with the techniques.
The source is facilitator Jan Cohen-Cruz’s recent book See Me: Prison Theater Workshops and Love. The chapters are written by pairs and one trio of people–facilitators, incarcerated participants, and a warden–who were greatly impacted by prison theater workshops they were part of together. Jan wanted to include all of their perspectives but some were not in the habit of either writing or sharing their writing beyond their horizons. We therefore employed a number of approaches so that people with little or no writing experience beyond their own circles could participate fully. Reading the less-represented points of view greatly confounded expectations and challenged misconceptions.
Workshop participants will get into groups of two or three and be led through the following techniques: 1) writing accounts of the same thing separately, sharing them, and seeing how that affects the next round of writing; 2) recording conversations around topics about which each has firsthand experience as the basis for an edited account; 3) shaping a shared experience into an academic essay, including the non-academic partner’s equal input to content; 4) one collaborator interviewing the other.
We’ll close with a general discussion about tools that make it possible for under-and mis-represented people to have real input into writing intended to reach a broader audience.
Writer, Educator, and Practitioner of Community-based Performance Art
NEW YORK
“Devising for Community Connection”
March 23, 2025
In this interactive and improvisational workshop, Daniel will share practices that DNAWORKS has used in 38 states and 17 countries to bring people closer together and create a greater sense of connection and belonging.
Co-Founder & Co-Curator, DNAWORKS
PENNSYLVANIA
