Politics and Art: Integrating the Political and the Personal
Friday 6/10, 2022 at 5:00 eastern time
Community Gathering on Zoom - register with the bright red reservation box to receive the Zoom link. These gatherings are a service for the theater community and are offered free for TRU members; we ask that non-members help keep us running by making a donation or joining as a member.
In the room: Guy Yedwab, Board President and Aimee Todoroff, managing director for the League of Independent Theater. How do we form our political views, as artists as well as people? Can we ever know when we are working for the greater good, especially in a current social climate of violently opposing factions? Are a politician’s well-meaning goals affected by the realities of politics? Even though support for the arts in our country is wanting, do the arts still play an effective role in change? How can we as artists make a difference? We will also touch on more pragmatic issues such as current efforts to revitalize live theater.
Panelists
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AIMEE TODOROFF
is a director practicing theater in NYC. She has been a part of two Obie Award winning productions, as a performer and as a director. She loves directing in traditional and non-traditional, site specific spaces. Equally adept at classic and new work, Aimee has helmed classic plays by Ibsen and Chekhov, and premieres by Cusi Cram, Daisy Foote, and frequent collaborator Chris Harcum among others. Aimee received her MFA in Directing from Southampton Arts, studying with Marsha Norman, Nick Mangano, and Rinde Eckert, and was the Assistant Director for John Rando and the playwright David Ives for Classic Stage Company’s production of “The Heir Apparent.” She is the artistic director of the indie theater company Elephant Run District, and is passionate about collaborative dialog between artists, audience and communities. In addition to directing and teaching, Aimee created the LIT Anti-Harassment Toolkit and speaks on best practices to create safe creative spaces. aimeetodoroff.org elephantrundistrict.org
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GUY YEDWAB
Community organizer and artist. “I am committed to equal access to culture, information, and democratic empowerment. I pursue this through community organizing, and through the power of technology, writing, and live performance to empower and transform communities.” Since 2009, Guy Yedwab has been an active member of the League of Independent Theater, a 501(c)6 advocacy organization tasked with providing collective voice for the Independent Theater community. Since 2014, Guy has been the Managing Director of Operations, and an active member of the Politics, Research and Outreach working group focused on Brooklyn. From 2008 to 2014, Guy ran a blog on the topic of how cultural conversation advances society. From 2009 to 2010, he contributed research articles to Createquity's Arts Policy Library. He ran a theater company named Organs of State from 2008-2013. The company's mission was to take the grand ideas that weave through our culture and make them tangible and human through interactive and immersive performance experiences.
