I stood on a stage, looking over a large group of Roma teens in Slovakia. I had come with a small group of Americans connected with the Dramatic Adventure Theater Company (DAT) as part of a team laying the groundwork for future collaborations with the Roma community. We were there for one day. The plan had been to lead a theatre/drama workshop with the younger Roma children. To our surprise, the entire community wanted to watch. The adults sat around and observed, while the teens called out suggestions to their younger siblings, some of which (we learned later) were slightly inappropriate. The younger children were having fun, and it seemed as if everyone was fascinated by what we were doing.

At first, the teens watched with sneers and mocking faces. Even without speaking Romani or Slovak (we had an interpreter who spoke both), it was easy to tell that they didn't fully trust these (mostly white) American strangers coming to their community. I didn't blame them. Why should they? Who were we to come in and say we could help these people solve some of the problems they faced in a country that still has biases against them, considering our problems with racism and an ever-growing cultural divide? But the morning with the younger kids had gone so well that the older kids wanted their chance. The leader of DAT wasn't prepared for that, so he turned to me (the most experienced in the group and the one with the PhD) and said, "Will you take over?"

I nervously relied on my never-ending toolbox of creative techniques. I led the group into an improvisational game where they communicated across language barriers. across different life experiences and even across the tensions from the racial/cultural divide. Watching the creative chaos unfold, I realized the power of play and creative approaches toward healing and strengthening communication, even in extreme circumstances. My love of theater and all the arts shifted from that experience to one where the tools of creativity and the arts could become a powerful method of change. That one experience has since led to other projects where I bring people together from different communities or perspectives to start the conversations we must have if we want a world that celebrates its people rather than reinforces false divides based on race, gender, religion, or financial status.

Where does my story begin? Perhaps it started in my first real job, teaching English conversation to people of all ages in Okayama, Japan. While there, I began to see the value of storytelling and discovered that the techniques and games I had learned in my theater classes made communication easier, learning more fun, and enabled me to understand people better even when we struggled with language and cultural differences.
Or maybe it began during my MFA program in theatre directing at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. A time when I was able to collaborate with a diverse group of people to bring to life many different performances that crossed cultural and social boundaries.
Or was it when I pursued my doctorate in theatre for young audiences and learned more about the tools of theatre for social change? At that moment I realized that I was less interested in putting on great shows (although I still love doing that) and more about the skills that creative forms like theater teach people about how to care, how to communicate, and how to live in a complex world.
I've spent much of my career as an adjunct or visiting faculty member at different colleges and universities. For complex reasons, this path became circuitous. I taught in various departments and fields, including theater, writing, English, education, liberal studies, history, and more. My students were rarely, if ever, pursuing theater or any arts, although some dreamed of becoming stars. Rather they came from the sciences or business, from criminal justice or psychology.
On the side, I began pursuing writing, and I was not interested in being pigeonholed into one genre. Just as in my professional career, I was a person of many interests, and I wanted to be able to explore them all.
In this way, I became a cross-disciplinary educator who thrived in creative collaborations where the goal was not to teach someone how to be a theater artist, but rather to help people tap into their inner creativity to enhance the work they do as well as the lives they live. I became a mentor who encouraged others—especially women and people of color--to embrace the playful creative side of themselves, not simply focus on the skills and knowledge that will make them the most money or get them the best job.
In 2020, I was burnt out with the academic world. The school I mainly taught for was never going to let me get a regular contract, and the shifting politics in the academic world meant that I was stuck. So, I began to explore other options. I trained to become a creativity and innovation coach; I became one of fewer than 100 people trained as Gateless writing instructors; and I began to explore the connection between my love for theater and all the arts with community building and social change.
I realized that my personal goals were no longer aligned with the world of academia but rather with finding ways to encourage people to listen, learn, and support one another in achieving goals outside of patriarchal and restrictive capitalistic structures. This led me on a personal journey of writing, creating videos, and helping to build Spark Collaborative, an online community that intends to support other creators in many different ways—from offering workshops and talks to helping people publish and/or promote their work. Along the way, I realized that I could give people something that they’ve been missing for a long time—the connection with dreams fueled by creativity and collaboration.