Living Stories is a therapeutic arts program in which people from underserved communities learn to create original dramatic works from their real-life experiences.
Through playfulness and games and within a safe community of peers, stories are identified that participants wish to develop. A selection of these stories are shaped into dramatic works and presented publicly.
Programs are customized to fit each group's particular needs and goals.
Public presentations can be casual, public or videotaped.
For further information, tell us about your community
A preview of the Living Stories for seniors program created for Westchester Collaborative Theater's Inaugural Hudson Valley New Voices Festival: Vintage Voices - this program was adapted for the COVID lock down of 2021.
"We were so pleased that 2 of the stories presented in HVNV Vintage Voices 2021 were selected for further play development and presented to a live audience at WCT in HVNV 2022."
"When we become the storytellers of our lives, we are no longer victims of circumstance.
We are artists - who make things happen, who write the next chapter, who change the ending."
Theatre Lab Co-Founder Deb Gottesman, from her TEDx Talk on Life Stories