Started in 2001, TheaterWorks! was designed as an avenue for our working constituents to have direct access to theater-making. It is a 12-16-week playwriting and performance class that culminates in a final performance of the participant’s short plays in an off-Broadway theater with professional actors.

TheaterWorks! is offered to corporations and unions as a resource for their employees and members, and each class is tailored to meet the specific needs of the host organization. Since its inception, the program has partnered with 10 unions, Cornell University ILR, CUNY, Climate Justice Institute, and been offered in bilingual sessions. 

To find out how to offer TheaterWorks! at your union or group, please contact us at info@theworkingtheater.org

Goals of Theaterworks! 

• to combat the sense of alienation many workers feel towards their jobs by providing them with a non-threatening creative environment in which to explore the meaning of what they do
• to teach creative problem solving 
• to foster self-expression 
• to help engender personal and long-term connections to the arts

Theaterworks! in Action

After completing the program,  many of our participants have gone on to take the program multiple years, use their writing to apply to theatre festivals, use it as a launch pad to return to school, and have become recipients of the Mark Plesent Commission Fund.

Prior participants have had this to say about their experience:

• “I never knew that doing this theater work could change the way I feel about my job” 
• “I learned to face people and not to be shy” 
• “I would wake up every day that we met, ready to go, excited in a way I haven’t felt in too long”
• “I learned to speak in public with confidence” 
• “It’s a place to speak out about things you can’t talk about at home or on the job” 
• “You relieve your stress by writing about it,”
• “This was one of my dreams that came true”