Recent Podcasts

This week, Kelundra Smith sits down with Yura Sapi to discuss building her own table as a playwright and shares the process and inspiration behind some of her latest works. Topics for this episode include affirmations, changing hierarchical structures, and moving beyond a sense of urgency.

This week, Yura Sapi is joined by Christiamilda Correa to discuss creating LiberArte, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to racial, social, and climate justice worldwide; the Strategic Planning Institute; and NYU Latinx Alumni. Topics for this episode include writing prompts, seeking out spaces to find community, and transforming challenges.

Victor Vazquez joins Yura Sapi to share his experience creating X Casting, a casting company that spans theatre and film in the United States and worldwide through a shared purpose of collective liberation and anti-racism. This episode’s topics include thinking about our role in the political landscape, globalism, and a curiosity for generous solutions.

Recently named Edward Medina Prize winner Brittani Samuel joins Yura Sapi to share about her experience building her own table as a theatre critic. Topics in this episode include choosing joy every day, being a child of immigrants, and a shared meditation practice. This episode is dedicated to theare artist and critic Edward Medina, honoring his legacy which brings us all together today.

Jose Solís joins Yura Sapi to discuss creating the BIPOC Critics Lab and co-creating the Token Theatre Friends podcast-webseries. This episode’s topics include finding beauty in the internet, how a metaphorical grain of sand can change the world, and a tarot reading for the first three months of 2023.

Abundance Zaddy joins Yura Sapi to talk about creating Cause Reign, an oral history project that connects Black people—with a focus on Black trans and queer folks—to their histories through dreamwork, the practice of remembering, recording, and activating the healing potential of dreams. Topics in this episode include prioritizing love and sweetness, transcending time, and asking for consent.

Theatre for development, which uses theatre to foster civic dialogue in communities, is quite popular in Malawi. Fumbani Innot Phiri, Jr. sits down with theatre for development practitioner Vitu Gwambaike Zgambo find out what commercial theatremakers in Malawi’s cities and towns can learn from the community-based practitioners creating theatre in villages around the country.

How exciting is it to transform our future and be the future ancestors we dream for? Yura Sapi opens the space with a gratitude ritual and shares about what’s to come on the new season of the Building Our Tables podcast. Topics for this season include evolutionary times, the four elements, and sounds of nature.

When filmmaker Thomas Chibambo founded the Blantyre Arts Festival in 2009, it was Malawi’s first multi-disciplinary arts festival. He joins host Fumbani Innot Phiri, Jr. to discuss the Blantyre Arts Festival’s current plans to better support theatrical performance and his own work to establish an Arts Council in Malawi.