MARA MCEWIN
is the Artistic Director, Co-Founder and writer, and director. Mara has produced, written, directed and sometimes performed in all of Treehouse Shakers’ 18 original dance-plays including Hatched, which is recognized as being the first dance-play for babies to tour the U.S. by an American artist/company. She has created ongoing arts in education programming for preschools to colleges, and led numerous teaching artist and classroom trainings throughout the country for the past 25+ years. During the pandemic, she helped to quickly transition the company to virtual programming. During this time Treehouse Shakers’ created Pillow Fort, for ages 3-7, a 9-part mini-series to engage young people through the arts at home, and movement series to be streamed into the classroom called Dance Break. Also a Storyteller, Mara was named “Best Storyteller of New York” by NY Press and has performed throughout the nation’s schools, festivals, theaters, colleges, and community events. She is the featured teller for F.I.T’s Toy Design Department and Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, as well as Baby Gap, Miramax, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Turtle Pond Publications, Chocolate Sauce Publishing, The Tribeca Film Festival, to name a select few. She is a writer, voice-over artist and story consultant for Activity Works, an interactive educational video-web series for classrooms across the U.S. She was the subject for a qualitative dissertation on the inclusion of storytelling in the classroom by Dr. Barb O’Neill and a featured 2019 speaker for O’Neill’s Transform Challenging Behavior Conference, the AATE 2021 National Conference, and the Theatre and Dance for the Very Young Conference in 2022. Mara co-created Niñopalooza an all day rock concert for kids and Niño Nada, a summer festival of children’s work that was acclaimed by the New York Times. Favorite acting credits include Bloomsday on Broadway with Stephen Colbert and Alec Baldwin, which aired on NPR as well as The Sandpiper at Symphony Space, NYC. She has performed with companies such as Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Theater, Eugene O’Neill by-the-Sea- Festival, Chekhov Festival, among many others. She has worked in film, print, television and commercials. Mara is a former long-term board member on the International Performing Arts for Youth (IPAY), NYC Storytelling Center, and serving on the School Leadership Team at Metropolitan Expeditionary School Leadership School in NYC. To read more about Treehouse Shakers visit treehouseshakers.com.
