What Sustains Us—Directing Beyond the Industry’s Limits, Cultivating a Joyful Practice
Saturday 8 November 2025
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The theme of this convening, What Sustains Us: Directing Beyond the Industry’s Limits, Cultivating a Joyful Practice, invites artists to reflect on and reimagine how to build sustainable, liberating, and joyful creative practices in theatre.
Co-founders Gabi Sanchez and Erlina Ortiz share their journeys of co-founding Power Street Theatre; being lifelong business partners; and creating a multicultural, community-centered theatre company in Philadelphia.
How can a life be organized? What authority should an archive hold? Dani Lamorte explores questions like these that propel B Kleymeyer’s As Others Have Before, an account of a sculptor’s life and the claims the living have on the stories of the dead.
In the solo show KOAL, Jacinta Yelland explored both human and non-human experiences in response to catastrophic bushfires in Australia. She shares the insights and creative decisions that kept her piece deeply entwined with nature and culture.
A Conversation About Southeast Asian Stories on the American Stage
Thursday 13 March 2025
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Lan Dinh, Chaiya Vong, and Catzie Vilayphonh join Chaz T. Martin (dramaturg) and Saymoukda in a conversation about the significance of their collaboration, what it’s aiming to foster, and the lasting impact they anticipate for Philadelphia’s Southeast Asian communities.
In their individual and collective artistic practices, Annalisa Dias and Applied Mechanics model more just and accessible futures for theatre. Their MicroCosmos encounter explores immersive theatremaking, collaborative leadership, and a desire to end the obsession with artistic “vision.”
Join us on a journey with Sharia Benn, founder of Sankofa African American Theatre Company, as she shares her inspiring origin story and the challenges of fostering representation in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's theatre scene. Delve into the challenges of representation, the soul work of theatre, and the transformative impact of art in shaping communities. Join us for a compelling exploration of identity, equity, and the art of social change.
Jan Cohen-Cruz delves into the process of bringing The Most Beautiful Home… Maybe, a multi-city project that aims to use art to influence how people think about housing, to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. Through this process, Jan saw how theatre can bring together housing advocates from different walks of life to find their commonalities and collectively imagine a world with equitable housing for all.
A Constellation of Artist Talks, Ceremonies, a Digital Performance Showcase, and Varied Conjures/Facilitations on Black Virtuosic Hope-Building
Thursday 27 July - Sunday 30 July 2023
Philadelphia, PA
Highlighting sacred local cultural institutions including the Colored Girls Museum, the Discovery Center, and a ritual tour across the city of Philadelphia, this gathering is a space for a stirring up of a new hope, inspired entirely by the study of our ancestral and living leaders who have built for themselves and their communities a daily practice of Black virtuosic hope.
Slovo. Theater Group uses theatre as a tool to fight against cultural oppression by promoting Ukrainian culture abroad. Audrey Rose, the group’s producer, discusses the process of making theatre during active war as a way of resisting oppression and violence.
A Participatory Experiment in Hybrid Community Convening Offered Online and in Philadelphia
Monday 25 July 2022
Philadelphia, PA
Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) presented BREAK/through, a participatory experiment in hybrid community convening offered in Philadelphia and livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network on Monday 25 July 2022 from 7:30 a.m.-12 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. EDT (Philadelphia, UTC -4).
Redefining Our Art. Transforming Our Practices. Tending to Our People.
Thursday 16 June to Saturday 18 June 2022
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Theatre Communications Group (TCG) presented the 2022 TCG National Conference: Pittsburgh livestreaming on the commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network from Thursday 16 June to Saturday 18 June 2022.
Celebrating and learning from the centuries-long Black freedom dialectic between the Caribbean and Philadelphia
Tuesday 23 February to Saturday 27 February 2021
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Black Spatial Relics presented their second annual convening livestreaming on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv from Tuesday 23 February to Saturday 27 February 2021.
What I Learned From the Quarantine / Lo que aprendí de la cuarentena
30 November 2020
In the intro article to the Colombia series, Carl(os) Roa, a Latinx artist from Philadelphia who made art in Bogotá last year, poses the question “What are the ways in which Colombia’s arts communities are just as fragmented as those in the United States” and shares how uplifting it has been to watch artists in the Bogotanx theatre community adapt to new realities brought on by the pandemic.
Ben Barson and Gizelxanath Rodriguez, part of the Afro Yaqui Music Collective, talk about artivism—what it means, what it can look like—in relation to building a jazz opera with various communities around the world.
The Pride Youth Theater Alliance presented an expert from Chasing Elevation and other performances by members of Dreams of Hope’s theatriQ ensemble in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network on Saturday 27 July at 5:00 p.m. PDT (San Francisco) / 7:00 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 8:00 p.m. EDT (New York) / 24:00 UTC+0.
In episode twelve of the From the Ground Up Podcast, Jeffrey Mosser talks to Pig Iron Theatre Company co-founder and co-artistic director Quinn Bauriedel about the history and future of the company, which is celebrating its twenty-fifth year.
Several months after Pittsburgh’s Quantam Theatre programmed The Gun Show, there was a mass shooting at a synagogue in the city. TJ Parker discusses how the company responded to the crisis, both through the play and through community engagement.
The National Performance Network presented their Annual Conference 2018 livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv from Friday-Sunday 14-16 December.
Amelia Parenteau explores the value of bringing theatre and the humanities into the medical field through the collaboration between Philadelphia’s Lantern Theater Company and the Sidney Kimmel Medical College.
