TheaterWorks! Short Plays On Caregiving at CUNY

Kathy McDonald

Faculty coleader

Kathy McDonald is an Associate Professor of English in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the City College of New York Center for Worker Education.  Her published work, including Feminism the Left, and Postwar Literary Culture (UP Mississippi 2012), focuses on class, culture, politics, and movement building in twentieth-century United States literature. McDonald serves as a mentor and writing group facilitator for family caregivers at Visible Ink at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Her current research studies the intersection of medicine, literature, and writing, particularly the relationship between personal narratives, end-of-life care, and public policy advocacy.  

Dhipinder Walia

Dhipinder Walia is a full-time lecturer and the undergraduate advisement coordinator at Lehman College, CUNY with a specialization in English Composition and Asian-American literature. Her research/teaching interests include: Asian and Asian-American literature, and creative writing, digital composition, English acquisition post-trauma, quantitative writing, and democratic grading processes. She has received her MFA in fiction from Adelphi University and is currently working on a MA in Women and Genders Studies from CUNY’s Graduate Center. Walia has published a piece on diversity in the workplace for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Working Theater and TheaterWorks!

Community Partner

Founded in 1985, the Working Theater‘s mission is to produce plays for about 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.

TheaterWorks! is a program of Working Theater, New York’s only off-Broadway theater company dedicated to producing and creating plays for, about and with working people. Developed in response to a desire among Working Theater’s constituency to become involved in the creative process, TheaterWorks! is an adult education program that teaches performance and writing skills to working people. In each sixteen-week class, students write and rehearse short theatrical pieces based on their work experiences, and ultimately perform them alongside theater professionals in an off-Broadway theater before an invited audience. 

In 2018, Working Theater is proud to partner with Kathlene McDonald and the Labor of Care project at CUNY, with the support from the Mellon Foundation, to offer TheaterWorks! to members of Professional Staff Congress and District Council 37 in a special program designed to explore the realities of working while also caring for disabled and/or aging relatives. These workers represent a variety of CUNY employees, from professors to associate professors, to building caretakers and custodians, to administrative assistants. The TheaterWorks! program is overseen by Educational Instructor Joe White and Working Theater Producing Artistic Director Mark Plesent.

Since its inception in 2001, TheaterWorks! has served workers at District Council 37, Transport Workers Local 100, Social Services Employees Local 371, Building Service Employees Local 32BJ, Communication Workers of America Local 1180 Retirees, Cornell University’s School of Industry and Labor Relations. and to members of UNITE! employed by Amalgamated Life Insurance.

 

Joe White

Joe White is the TheaterWorks! Playwriting Instructor. He graduated Cum Laude from The University Of Rhode Island with a BA in English and a BFA in Theatre. He has been an active member of the theatre community in New York City for 38 years, performing in off-Broadway theatres, including So-Ho Rep, The Public Theatre, West Side Arts Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theatre. He has performed at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, toured India and acted in Regional Theatre. Joe’s film and television acting credits include Goodfellas directed by Martin Scorcese, and numerous episodes of TV’s Law and Order and Blue Bloods. As a director, Joe has worked at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Lincoln Center Institute and The Williamstown Theatre Festival, to name a few. He is an Acting Coach at Fordham Law School and teaches playwriting for The Working Theater. He is a Teaching Artist for Manhattan Theatre Club and Theatre Development Fund. Joe has spent many years volunteering for The 52^nd St Project (a program which brings theatre professionals together with the underserved children in Hell’s Kitchen). Joe is a member of Actors & Writers, a theatre company in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he maintains a home.

Grisel Y. Acosta

Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta is an associate professor at the City University of New York-BCC. Her first book of poetry, Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere, is an Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize finalist, and it is forthcoming from Get Fresh Books in 2021. Recent work can be found in Best American Poetry, The Baffler, Acentos Journal, Kweli Journal, Red Fez, Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, In Full Color, Paterson Literary Review, MiPoesias, Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom, and Celebrating Twenty Years of Black Girlhood: The Lauryn Hill Reader. She is a Geraldine Dodge Foundation Poet, a Macondo Fellow, and the editor of Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity, an anthology that features over Latinx 30 contributors and subjects. Her work focuses on her Afro-Latinx and indigenous ancestry, queer identity, the punk and house music subcultures, her birthplace of Chicago, and the destruction of post-colonial neoliberalism in educational environments.

Valerie Knight

Valerie Knight, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist that engages the therapeutic arts. Her journey started with the professional theater and exploring bereavement issues with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Since then, her work has radiated outward into a variety of settings. Her specialties include victims of trauma, care for the caregiver and health professionals, HIV/AIDS, loss and bereavement, and the psychological needs of women and people of color. She has taught CUNY psychology courses on site at District 1199 for 16 years. She maintains a private practice in Manhattan.

Constance H. Gemson

Constance H. Gemsoncurrently creates and conducts educational workshops on resiliency, coping with change, and managing stress. She continues to be an active member of the Professional Staff Congress. Her work has been published inNarrative in Social Work Practice: The Power and Possibility of Story. and other books. Her play Cigarette Girl in the South Bronx was produced by the Working Theater. Constance is writing a memoir about her New York City life.

David Smilow

David Smilow is a writer/actor who lives in upstate New York.  His professional writing career began in 1975, and he has been generating scripts for film, the stage and television ever since.  His TV work – specifically in daytime drama, where he served as a staff writer on One Life to Live, Guiding Light and As the World Turns – has garnered two Emmys and three Writers Guild Awards, while his short plays have received productions literally across the globe.  Most recent project: a prospective comedy series for television. As an actor, David’s appeared in New York productions ranging from Don DeLillo’s Valparaiso to Arthur Miller’s The Price.  Regional theater productions include, among others, Copenhagen, Tartuffe, The Tavern, Bill W. and Dr. Bob.  He is currently appearing in a production of Uncle Vanya in Woodstock, NY.

John Reid Currie

John Reid Currie is the director of the Center for Student Accessibility at New York City College of Technology. He was the founding editor of the journal Ozone Park. In 2009, he was a writer in residence at the Louis Armstrong Archives and Museum. His poetry is featured in Greenwich Village: a Primo Guide to Shopping, Eating, and Making Merry in True Bohemia published by St. Martins Griffin, Newtown Literary, Five Fathoms published by Protophorm Press/Heskin Contemporary. His chapbook OTHERS, was published by Ghostbird Press in 2015 (http://www.ghostbirdpress.org).

Diana Murillo

Diana Murillo is a bilingual school counselor at New Utrecht High School and a part-time adjunct lecturer at Kingsborough Community College’s College Now Program. Her play, “Heavenly Encounters” was produced by Milton Polsky and performed by the UFT players. Her writing credits include Paterson Literary Review, Horizontes, American Teacher-Teacher’s Lounge, El Diario La Prensa, Beacon Quarterly Newsletter, and The Tablet. Her volunteer history includes Arch Care Time Bank, Augustana Nursing Home, Center for Family Life and others. She holds the position of Guidance Chapter Vice Chair for the high school level and delegate for the UFT. Interviews given to New York Teacher and Spectrum News NY1 with Roger Clark. Supervises and guides student interns from the school counseling programs from various colleges.