Oct 29, 2019
Julie and Casey talk with Nicole Brewer, a thought leader and passionate activist for anti-racist theatre. We talk racism, diversity and inclusion, owning your voice, and creating inclusive environments. She shares with us both her personal and professional journey to the work she's doing today, and sets the house on fire with her truth bombs. Find more about Nicole and her work on her website.
Here is a bit more about Nicole:
Nicole Brewer earned her M.F.A. in Acting from Northern Illinois University and her B.F.A. from Howard University. She's worked professionally as an actor, director and educator in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as in Washington DC. Nicole has facilitated workshops in embodied acting techniques and disrupting traditional acting training programs at the 2017 and 2018 TCG conference, The Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and internationally at Goldsmith’s University in London.
She is a founding member of the HBC Playback Theatre Ensemble in Washington D.C. who at the time was the only all-female women of color playback ensemble in The United States. She is the founder of Creative Acts Learning Center LLC in Washington DC which provided workshops and seminars to actors in the Nation’s Capital.
In 2019, Nicole launched reportracisttheatre.com as tool for reporting racism when it occurs in theatre. She authored two articles that outlined the need for the theatre industry to shift to being anti-racist; Why Equity Diversity and Inclusion Are Obsolete published by American Theatre and Playwrights of Color, White Directors and Exposing Racist Policy published by HowlRound. Nicole has spent the last 5 years refining an inclusive method of theatre training and practices which she calls Conscientious Theatre Training. Nicole’s article, “Training With A Difference” published in the January 2018 edition of American Theatre highlight the need for theatre training to adapt more inclusive models of instruction. Nicole is invited all over the US to teach workshops on both conscientious theatre training and anti-racist theatre.
Ms. Brewer has worked at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a premier performing arts high school in Washington D.C. as visiting faculty (acting). Nicole is visiting faculty at the National Theater Institute (NTI). She was on faculty for seven and half years at Howard University. Nicole has also worked as faculty at Northern Virginia Community College and Montgomery College teaching acting and introduction to communications courses.
She is a member of the 2018 artEquity cohort, VASTA, and Black Theatre Network. Directing credits: Milk Like Sugar at The Black Rep, Jonkonnu at Howard University, and Hair Chronicles DC Fringe Festival. Acting Theater Credits include: White Rabbit Red Rabbit Theater Alliance, For Colored Girls Colored Peoples Theater, In The Blood The Hegira, Tartuffe & Taming of the Shrew African American Shakespeare Company, Anton in Show Business Spreckels, and Gypsy and the Bully Door by Nina Mercer. Nicole currently resides in Washington D.C. with her husband and three imperfectly perfect kids.