Opportunities

Call for Participants: TheaterWorks! Performance/Playwriting Workshop on Caregiving at CUNY

September 6, 2018

Application Deadline:
Wednesday, October 3, 2018, 11:59pm.

Due to the overwhelming success of the first TheaterWorks! on Caregiving at CUNY workshop in Spring 2018, the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY in collaboration with Working Theater and PSC-CUNY, is pleased to announce a Fall workshop/performance series. This free 12-week playwriting and performance workshop is open to CUNY faculty, staff, graduate students, and retirees who are PSC-CUNY or DC37 members involved with the care of an elderly, ill, or disabled family member and who are looking to write about the care relationship, the labor involved, and/or its impact on their life and work. The workshop will be led by writer/performer Joe White and is organized by Kathlene McDonald as part of “The Labor of Care Archive: Caregiver Narratives from CUNY and its Communities” Mellon Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research.

TheaterWorks! workshops teach performance and writing skills to working people. Participants write their own short plays based on their work and caregiving experiences. The workshop will begin with theater exercises aimed at uncovering the dramatic potential of everyday stories. As the workshop progresses we will explore the humor, exasperating challenges, and deep connections of our lives. In a relaxed, welcoming atmosphere, TheaterWorks! participants will write their own short plays. The workshop will end with a performance of participants’ work in which you will perform your work and perform them before an invited audience, alongside professional actors and with the guidance of professional directors. All levels of writers are welcome.

What past participants are saying about TheaterWorks!:

“It’s a place to speak out about things you can’t talk about at home or on the job. You relieve your stress by writing about it.”

“I learned to face people and not to be shy.”

“Life is stressful and this class helped to alleviate a lot of that.”

“I would wake up every day that we met, ready to go, excited in a way I haven’t felt in too long.”

Workshop Details

Time and Day: Wednesdays 6:00PM—8:00PM

Dates: October 10th to December 5th (no workshop November 21)

Rehearsals: Wednesday—Friday, December 12th—14th, 6:00—8:00PM

Final performance: Monday, December 17th, 7PM

*Priority will be given to applicants who can attend all sessions of this free workshop.

Location: Workshops and rehearsals will be held at The City College Center for Worker Education, CUNY: 25 Broadway, 7^th floor. The final performance will take place in an off-Broadway theater (specific location to be announced).

Workshop cap: 12 participants

Eligibility: CUNY faculty, staff, graduate students, and retirees who are PSC-CUNY or DC37 members involved with the care of an elderly, ill, or disabled family member and who are looking to write about the care relationship, the labor involved, and/or its impact on their life and work.

Application Deadline: Wednesday, October 3, 2018, 11:59 pm.

How to Apply:please click here to fill out this google application form.

For further questions, please contact Kathlene McDonald at [email protected]

About The Labor of Care Archive: Caregiver Narratives from CUNY and its Communities: This project works closely with labor and arts-based community partners to create, showcase, and archive personal narratives by and about family caregivers who tend the elderly, ill, and disabled while working and/or going to school at CUNY, as well as oral history narratives from home health workers in the New York City area, many of who are CUNY students themselves and who often work in partnership with family caregivers.

About Working Theater: Founded in 1985, Working Theater‘s mission is to produce plays forabout and with working people (the majority of Americans working in the industrial, transportation and service industries.) In a nation that is frequently divided by cultural and class distinctions and where economic disparity continues to widen, Working Theater is committed to making theater that can bridge those divisions, expanding the reach of theater’s impact to all people, uniting us in our common humanity.

About PSC-CUNY: The Professional Staff Congress is the union that represents more than 27,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the CUNY Research Foundation. It is dedicated to advancing the professional lives of its members, enhancing their terms and conditions of employment, and maintaining the strength of the nation’s largest, oldest and most visible urban public university.

About the Center for the Humanities The Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY encourages collaborative and creative work in the humanities at CUNY and across the city through seminars, publications, and public events. Free and open to the public, our programs aim to inspire sustained, engaged conversation and to forge an open and diverse intellectual community.

Co-sponsored by The Labor of Care Archive Mellon Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research, PSC-CUNY, and the Working Theater.