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Welcome to Amplify & Ignite 2025

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Emerson College:
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Sustainability Invitation
Emerson Sustainability is currently preparing for the annual Campus Race to Zero Waste competition that runs from February through the end of March. It’s a friendly competition between universities in North America to reduce waste on campuses and raise awareness about waste-related behaviors. In celebration of Campus Race to Zero Waste, we are participating in the Green Event Certification program and we hope you will join us in this challenge. In advance of your travel to Boston, we encourage you to bring a reusable water bottle and/or hot thermos and utensils to reduce the need for single use products.
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Community Engagement from Theory to Impact
Saturday March 22, 2025 2:45pm - 4:00pm EDT
LB 226
Session Evaluation
[PLAY]ING THROUGH OUR DIFFERENCES: How Creating a Fictional Play Can Open Real Community  Dialogue Presenter: Taylor St. John
"SHAVONNE: In case you haven't noticed we live in the same hood, Einstein. BAKARI: Nah, we in the same hood living two different lives." An excerpt from We All We Got: A Binghampton Play By Ann Perry Wallace Over the past two years, I have been leading a new community-playmaking program in one of Memphis, Tennessee's most diverse neighborhoods. Binghampton (pronounced Bing-HAMP-ton) is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Memphis (with over 27 languages spoken). It is also a neighborhood where national conversations about immigration, policing, gentrification, discrimination, and safety are all playing out daily on the streets. Through the duration of the project, community members shared hundreds of real stories about the beauties and challenges facing their neighborhood. These stories then inspired a fictional play, We All We Got: A Binghampton Play, written by local playwright Ann Perry Wallace that featured over 40 community members performing onstage. In this presentation, I will use this latest community-playmaking project to reflect on how working within a fictional context allowed a safe entry point that made it possible for participants from very different backgrounds to coexist along differences, build authentic relationships, step into other's shoes, and have discussions that simply may not have been possible within the limitations of "real life". In addition, I will provide analysis of the human, artistic, and operational challenges of engaging with multiple communities that often have conflicting needs. Finally, through stories from the project, we will explore the benefits of community-playmaking in neighborhoods.

A Collective Vision for a Future in the Arts through Community and Civic Engagement Programs
Presenter: Sharon Counts

The arts have the power to effect change and animate democracy by demonstrating the public value of creative work that contributes to a larger social good. In this accelerated moment of radical change, the arts are being more consciously used as a way to engage communities around achieving civic goals and to create positive connections. A major tension in the field right now revolves around how to galvanize our collective resources and knowledge toward building a more sustainable future for theater at large. This article centers the use of civic and community engagement programs as one prominent and effective method that can foster synergy with communities that arts organizations and theaters engage and seek to engage. Many theaters are using community engagement programs to ignite community conversations and address past inequities. A case study highlights how one regional theater, Mid-Sized City Theater (MCT), a pseudonym, used community and civic engagement programs to promote reimagining their organization as a civic institution and to rebuild relationships with their community. The pursuit to improve relationships between theaters and communities using community engagement programs is one way this sector is working to address historical inequities for cultural workers, artists, and participants in the arts.  
Speakers
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Taylor St. John

Taylor St. John (he/him) is a leader, theatre maker, and educator currently serving as the Director of Education and Engagement at the Orpheum Theatre Group in Memphis, TN. At the Orpheum he directs the Neighborhood Play Program (a community-playmaking program) and the Teaching Artist... Read More →
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Sharon Counts

Sharon Counts is an Assistant Professor of Business and Design Strategies at Parsons School of Design and the Associate Director of the Masters of Strategic Design and Management program. Her research-led creative practice explores the efficacy of social impact and community engagement... Read More →
Saturday March 22, 2025 2:45pm - 4:00pm EDT
LB 226
  Panel

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