“I have a question about speaking up when I witness troubling things in rehearsal….” Two experts address questions about bullying in the rehearsal room.
Ashley Popio, Artistic Director of the Women’s Theatre Festival, offers insight from a theatre practitioner and leadership perspective (and we talk about best practices for directors). Elizabeth Johnson, a trauma educator with Spark Equity, shares her wisdom about bullying and the impact of healthy and unhealthy practices in our creative spaces. Both of these experts offer practical tools and actions you might take if you are a witness to this behavior, if you are the target, or if you are a director who’d like some new tools to use in the rehearsal room.
This is a longer episode than usual, but I deliberately made the choice not to divide the conversation into two. For many reasons, I feel like this is the most important episode — perhaps the most useful episode — that Artist Soapbox has released thus far. I’m curious if you agree.
Other Ask the Soapbox episodes (at the conclusion of each interview segment):
- 053: Working with kids in theatre. Teacher and director Barbette Hunter empowers kids to shine together.
- 048: How do we do the impossible? Choreographer ShaLeigh Comerford explores collaboration and sustainability
- 047: Theatre education programming with Burning Coal’s Director of Education, Kaley Morrison
ASK THE SOAPBOX: Submit your question and get it answered on the Soapbox. Listeners are invited to submit anonymous questions to the podcast whether creative, personal, professional, or artistic.
This episode is brought to you by the Soapboxers, the official patrons of the Artist Soapbox. If you like these episodes and want more, get on the Soapbox! Artist Soapbox theme music by Bart Matthews.
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Time break-down:
[0:00] Episode intro
[3:15] Conversation with Ashley Popio
[42:40] Conversation with Elizabeth Johnson
[1:13:00] Thanks and sign-off
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