CREATIVE TOOLS FOR CRITICAL TIMES !--break-->
Creative Tools for Critical Times (CT4CT) is Fringe Benefits Theatre’s multi-year, multi-community arts for civic engagement initiative comprising workshops, symposia, internship trainings, performing arts showcases, and a web-based video series. We developed CT4CT in response to the concern expressed by our youth and community partners that we are—all of us—living in critical times. The fabric of our social contracts is shredding; the socio-political landscape is riddled with landmines; our world is increasingly divided into us versus them camps. CT4CT builds bridges of understanding among diverse Southern California communities, who use their unique experiences to create artwork that promotes awareness and inspires action to constructively address injustices affecting underrepresented groups. !--break-->
Through our CT4CT Videos for Social Justice Workshops with diverse school and community groups, participants develop videos and other artistic strategies for promoting social justice causes of importance to them. Through the Intern Training Program, university students learn how to facilitate these workshops, while also developing their own unique community-based arts for social justice projects. The Arts for Civic Engagement Showcases afford the interns and our middle school partners with opportunities to preview their video and theatre projects, and the “Think Outside the Box” Symposia create forums in which all program participants can reflect on the process and explore new ideas with each other and the public. The Videos for Social Justice Web Series provides a space where CT4CT participants can share their experiences with injustice and their visions for creating a more just future with the wider public. !--break-->
Through this multi-pronged, multi-community, interlocking programming, CT4CT creates a uniquely generative space for a diverse group of students & community members to collaborate non-hierarchically to tackle and find creative artistic solutions to complex, intersecting social justice issues. !--break-->
COMMUNITY PARTNERS !--break-->
CT4CT seeks to raise up LGBTQ+ and BIPOC youth voices and connect diverse and often underserved or otherwise marginalized communities across all kinds of demographic divides. Some of the groups we are partnering with on the project include the Los Angeles LGBT Center, Brothers, Sons, Selves of InnerCity Struggle, Southeast Middle School (SEMS), the Institute for Theatre & Social Change of the University of Southern California (USC), Espérer Service Organization of Loyola Marymount University (LMU), B'nai Tzedek, Girls Build/L.A., City View Assisted Living , Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, St. Mary’s School, New Horizon School, and Coming to the Table/Pasadena, “a community of people who seek to heal from the ravages of slavery and the ensuing racism.” We are also collaborating with two distinguished groups of LGBTQ & Allied theatre artists, poets, and political and legal activists We are continuing to reach out to groups representing Asian Americans, Indigenous Peoples, Muslim Americans, people with disabilities, homeless adults and youth, and formerly incarcerated citizens, among others, in order to include as wide a range of communities and individuals as possible. !--break-->
PILOT!--break-->
We have successfully piloted four of the CT4CT programs, including Videos for Social Justice Workshops with 46 community groups and schools; two 7-week Internship Trainings with our project partners at the University of Southern California, our first Arts for Civic Engagement Showcase, and our ongoing, online CT4CT Video Series (with 100+ original videos!). We’ve directly engaged over 1,400 participants and 5000 audience members. And we are eager to continue this vital, transformative work! !--break-->
PROGRAMMING OVERVIEW !--break-->
In their work with CT4CT, participants have an opportunity to: deepen their understanding of current social justice issues; learn a variety of approaches to using theatre and film to change hearts and minds, and create transformative works of art that inspire and equip audiences to make a difference in our world. !--break-->
Creative Tools for Critical Times comprises five programs: workshops, symposia, theatre and video showcases, internship training programs, and an online video series. !--break-->
CT4CT Student Intern Training Program (A 6-week program in Spring 2022)
In this training, students learn how to design and facilitate a variety of Theatre for Social Justice (TSJ) and Videos for Social Justice (VSJ) workshops and projects. They develop cultural competency, ally-empowerment, community-building, playwriting, improvisation, and workshop facilitation skills. The interns work on three tracks: 1) Developing proposals for TSJ and VSJ projects addressing issues of importance to them with local community groups; 2) Creating arts-for-civic-engagement theatre and video pieces; and 3) Preparing to help-facilitate VSJ Workshops. !--break-->
CT4CT Videos for Social Justice Workshops (36 workshops from September 2021 through July 2022)
Our veteran teaching artists and student interns lead these workshops with diverse Southern California communities and schools. Participants share stories and brainstorm artful strategies to promote awareness, understanding, and action around a wide range of social justice issues. With the assistance of our workshop facilitators, participants create “Call to Action” video scripts about issues affecting their community. Each workshop concludes with participants recording short inspirational videos to share online with the wider public. !--break-->
CT4CT Arts for Civic Engagement Showcases (Spring 2022)
Our interns and our Southeast Middle School students will present their original plays and videos addressing current social justice issues in interactive online and in-school showcases. The interns will take leadership roles in producing and marketing these showcases and post-show discussions for their peers, families and communities. !--break-->
CT4CT “Think Outside the Box” Symposium (Fall, 2022)
Student interns and the school and community members with whom they’ve collaborated in CT4CT workshops throughout Southern California will participate in these symposia. They will join together in panels, roundtables, and workshops to discuss their recent arts for civic engagement efforts and reflect critically on their concepts and methodologies and the impact of their work. Finally, they will explore ideas for advancing their work, the program and the field. !--break-->
CT4CT Video Series (Ongoing)
This web-based video series highlights the “Call to Action” videos created by youth in our CT4CT workshops as well as by our student interns and teaching artists, offering the wider public tools and inspiration for creating “a new normal”. !--break-->
Through this multi-pronged, multi-community, interlocking programming, CT4CT creates a unique, generative space for a diverse group of students & community members to collaborate non-hierarchically to tackle & find creative artistic solutions to complex, intersecting social justice issues. !--break-->
THE NEED !--break-->
Since 2014, we have led year-long “Stand Up & Speak Out” Residencies at Southeast Middle School (SEMS), through which the participants gain a broader and deeper understanding of present-day social justice issues, and work together to write and produce plays and videos promoting constructive action in response to those issues. In recent years, our SEMS youth and university-age intern teaching artists and volunteers have expressed increasing alarm regarding the socio-political issues dividing their peers, families, neighbors, and our entire country in these critical times. Project participants and audience members alike have shared heart-wrenching stories about the direct impact on their lives of racist, anti-immigrant, sexist and homophobic rhetoric, behavior and policies. They are frightened by the extent to which rage and uncivil discourse are driving wedges between individuals and communities. The more our youth wrestled with these issues, the more they wanted to expand their work as artists and agents of positive change committed to healing the divides. In response to their concerns, insights, and desires, we worked with the youth to develop “Creative Tools for Critical Times”/CT4CT, our multi-community, multi-school initiative. !--break-->
THIS PIVOTAL MOMENT !--break-->
At this critical time, with our communities profoundly divided in an unprecedented way, Fringe Benefits’ creative, bridge-building work is needed more than ever. And we are ready to meet the moment. We have assembled a fantastic team of talented, knowledgeable and passionate artists, educators and student leaders. So far, over 1,400 Southern Californians have enthusiastically engaged in our CT4CT Workshops. And they have already started sharing their ideas in person and online. Twenty-nine gifted, committed interns gained invaluable tools in the spring 2020 and spring 2021 Intern Trainings. They are eager to create transformative art, and to facilitate Theatre for Social Justice and Videos for Social Justice workshops with diverse schools and communities throughout Southern California. Fringe Benefits’ interns and teaching artists are also looking forward to bringing together all of our CT4CT project partners in the symposium, which we all hope will give rise to increased thoughtful and effective civic engagement and collaboration among multiple, diverse SoCal communities. !--break-->
At this pivotal moment, your support through Benevity would enable us to empower these youth and countless more Southern Californians to collaboratively create vitally-needed, community-strengthening work.!--break-->
Thank you for your time and consideration!
