NextStage - FREE Artist Professional Development at Village Theatre

Are you a professional artist? Join us for NextStage, a FREE online class series designed to illuminate, support, and encourage the professional artistic experience through practical instruction and conversation.

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About NextStage

February

Thursday, February 11 at 7:30 pm
Conversation: Join us for a conversation with Jay O’Leary Woods where we explore how we, as artists, can be our own best advocate. Jay will guide us as we consider how we can come back stronger by prioritizing wellness and positive self-esteem as we reenter artistic spaces after this prolonged pause.

Thursday, February 25 at 7:30 pm
Practical Lesson: Learning to take care of yourself as an artist is paramount. Sadiqua Iman, practitioner at Nile’s Edge Healing Arts, will teach us some practical ways to find and maintain balance, explore mindfulness, and practice body awareness. Come prepared to move, breathe, and connect to your inner joy.

February Instructors

Jay O’Leary Woods (February 11)

Miss Jay is a Seattle based artist-activist currently serving as the Co-Artistic Director of Sound Theatre and founder of Seattle Theatre Leaders. Jay has taught and directed internationally, at institutions such as Village Theatre, ACT Theatre, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, bringing her Anti-Racism, community building, trauma informed practice in everything she does. Jay holds an MA in Directing from Edinburgh Napier University.

Sadiqua Iman (February 25)

Sadiqua Iman performs as the character Namii and uses burlesque, storytelling, and dance to deconstruct issues of gender fluidity, relationships, and what it means to “strip down” outside of sexual connotations. She is Founder/Artistic Director of Earth Pearl Collective, a queer black womyns social justice non profit organization dedicated to healing communities through artistic collaborations. Sadiqua works as a freelance director, costume designer, teaching artist, and project manager in the Seattle area and around the country. She has directed an all woman of color cast of A Streetcar Named Desire to raise awareness of same sex domestic violence and created an interactive performances based on the disappearance of queer black leadership in social justice movements called We Be Dat. In 2018 she premiered an original boi-lesque ballet called Tail Feather that explored female bodied masculinity at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. Her most recent project was directing August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean at Chattanooga Theatre Centre in January 2020. Sadiqua Iman earned her Masters of Fine Arts in Arts Leadership at Seattle University. She was awarded the 2019 Arc Fellowship award by 4Culture and used the funds to open the new Afro-centered healing arts center Nile’s Edge.

March

NextStage and Reboot Theatre Company are collaborating to bring artists a class line-up designed to share lived knowledge and expertise, illuminate the experience of identity within the arts and support continued voice training for transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming individuals. Together we will continue to explore what we are all asking, “Can we feed an artists’ soul rather than asking them for more?”

Thursday, March 11 at 7:30 pm
Conversation: Join artists Josephine Kearns, Aaron M. Davis-Norman and Jasmine Joshua as they share how producers, directors, designers and artistic decision makers can best support artists throughout the theatre-making experience, from season selection all the way through running a show. They will share their experiences in these areas as it relates to the TGNC and BIPOC artists and the various intersectional identities that are too often missing from the room. Let’s talk about what equity within the arts looks like, how we can amplify under used artists’ joy and talents and the practical ways these artists are bridging the gap between two communities to create one collaborative community.

Thursday, March 25 at 7:30 pm
Practical Lesson: Join us for a virtual voice-affirming lesson from Alexandra Plattos Sulack, Co-Founder of the Chicago based studio THE VOICE LAB.

The Voice Lab provides voice affirming services for transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming individuals as well as music lessons for adults and kids in voice, piano, and guitar. Our teachers are educated, diversely trained pedagogues and performers. Not only is it our job to meet every question you have about the inner workings of the voice with a thoughtful and thorough explanation, but it is also our goal to hear you and understand what taking lessons means to you.

March Instructors

Josephine Kearns (she/her) (March 11)

Josephine is a gender consultant, dramaturg, and educator who specializes in queer, transgender, and intersex identities. She has worked in theatres across the US and Canada as a pioneer in the field of gender consulting, supporting every aspect of productions from script and casting to marketing and production. Her experience spans fifteen years in professional theatre, staff positions at multiple trans-supporting organizations, and over 150 gender inclusivity trainings for schools, hospitals, government institutions, and arts organizations.

Aaron M. Davis-Norman (March 11)

Aaron is an educator, artist/activist originally from Compton California and holds a BM in vocal performance from Cornish College of The Arts. Aaron has performed in many musical arenas from opera, to musical theatre, to gospel and has worked with incredible musicians across Europe and North America. As an educator Aaron has worked with students both young and young at heart. As an activist Aaron fights for equitable theatre education programs for youth and diverse representation on stage and production teams. Aaron can be found teaching at Village Theatre KidStage and Cornish College of The Arts.

Jasmine Joshua (they/them) (March 11)

Jasmine is a Seattle writer, producer, actor, director, and gender consultant. They are the Artistic Director of the award-winning Reboot Theatre Company whose mission is to test new interpretations of established works through nontraditional casting and design. Jasmine graduated magna cum laude from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in Creative Writing and a minor in Jewish Studies. They also studied with the Larry Moss Studio and the Groundlings. Before moving to Seattle, Jasmine was a theatrical publicist in the Bay Area, managing clients from LORT theatres and Broadway tours to opera, ballet, and a monster truck rally. Directing credits: Reboot Theatre; Cafe Nordo; assistant director at 5th Avenue Theatre; associate director at Village Theatre. On stage: Intiman, Book-it, Seattle Musical Theatre, among others. www.jasminejoshua.com

Alexandra Plattos Sulack (she/her) (March 25)

Alexandra is a performer, singer, and teacher/coach based in Chicago, and the Co-Founder of The Voice Lab, Inc. She believes that everyone has a voice worth sharing. Her work centers around meeting voice users where they are and co-creating a plan steeped in science-based pedagogy and play, so that their most authentic voice (singing or speaking) can emerge.