Our Creating Change Conversation Series is back for our 5th season! These conversations really are the heart of what we do here, because each group of panelists helps all of us to think through: HOW DO WE MAKE THE ARTS MORE EQUITABLE, MORE ACCESSIBLE, MORE RELEVANT, AND MORE IMPACTFUL IN OUR COMMUNITIES?
Join us June 24th at 7pm ET . Panelists:
Brianna Fallon
Shira Helena Gitlin (they/them) is a Boston-based director, dramaturg, gender consultant, and musical theatre enthusiast. Select directing credits include: The Normal Heart (New Repertory Theatre), Indecent (The Concord Players), For the Fish (Moonbox Productions), Echo & Narcissus, Clemenza (Off-Brand Opera), Organic (National Women's Theatre Festival), 7 Rooms: The Masque of the Red Death (Flat Earth Theatre), Tales from Camp Strangewood: Mr. Champagne (Sparkhaven Theatre), Precious Stuff, Where the Fireworks Come From, Deep Blue (Boston Theatre Marathon), Shrek: The Musical (Mohawk Trail Regional School), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Hampshire College). Associate/Assistant Directing: The Prom (SpeakEasy Stage Company), Eat Your Young (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), The Pink Unicorn (SpeakEasy Stage Company), Fanny & Stella (NAMT). As a gender consultant, Shira has held Transgender Inclusion workshops and consulted for individual theatre makers and various theatres and organizations across the US and Canada. They are also a member of the Gender Explosion Initiative. Shira is a graduate of the Arden Professional Apprentice Class 26, was an Artistic Fellow at SpeakEasy Stage Company, and is an alum of Directors Lab North in Toronto, Canada. They have a BA from Hampshire College in directing with an emphasis on musical theatre studies. For more information, please visit shirahelenagitlin.com. Venmo: @shira-gitlin.
Devin Hil
Lee Myles (she/they) is a dance artist, movement facilitator and educator, singer/songwriter, and podcaster based in Nashville, TN. After studying Dance Performance degree at Illinois State University, Lee moved back to her home in Nashville to dance professionally with Found Movement Group for several years. During that time they co-launched The Toolbox with Stacie Flood-Popp, a choreography program for artists wanting a safe container to expand their creative practice. They also co-founded and co-hosted with Alicia Tarver, Misfits & Mystics, a podcast centering voices on the margins around deconstruction, spirituality, mental health, and social justice. Leading up to the pandemic in 2020, Lee felt a calling to shift focus and returned to her love of music and songwriting. Their music embodies a soulful calling back to their Black church roots with a sense of mysticism that trickles in an eclectic variety of genre influences. Divesting from the need to perform to appease elitist or capitalist expectations, Lee’s work invites folks to bear witness to storytelling, testimony, and be an active participant in the embodied response to being moved by art. Lee currently facilitates various community emergent movement practices that seek to invite others to be aware of self, community, and their environment. In addition to her current podcast, Lee has also begun crafting another, I Don’t Know What I’m Doing. Both platforms create an invitation for curiosity, mystery, and brave conversations led by folks who are rooted in liberation work. As a queer Black artist, Lee hopes to provide safe and brave spaces for those considered the “least of these” to find their authentic voice and utilize creative practices to invoke social healing and change.
We do pay our panelists for their time and sharing. Please consider your privilege and their lived experiences when donating. All funds support our mission, and to help us continue to make our resources for artists and arts educators free and/or affordable, using sliding scale and donation-based pricing models.