Fringe Benefits Theatre CT4CT, Los Angeles, CA (2026)

08/15/2026

Hey Friends, It's my great pleasure to invite you (& your students, if applicable) to join Fringe Benefits Theatre for "The Personal is Political : Imagining the Possibilities” with Pulitzer Finalist Heidi Schreck! 🗽JOIN US for this FREE online workshop, Saturday, October 3, from 1pm to 2:30pm (Pacific)! 🗽Applications are due Saturday, September 26.

👉🏾👉🏽👉🏿APPLY HERE : https://forms.gle/qgXBBLBRtTL8rJJs8

💚 HEIDI SCHRECK is a playwright and screenwriter based in Brooklyn. Her critically acclaimed play What the Constitution Means to Me played an extended, sold-out run on Broadway, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, nominated for two Tony Awards, and won the OBIE and New York Drama Critics’ Circle awards for Best New American Play. It also toured nationally, and was the most performed play in America in 2023 and 2024. A filmed version premiered on Amazon Prime Video and received Critics Choice, PGA, and DGA Award nominations. Other plays include Grand Concourse, Creature, There are No More Big Secrets, and a new translation of Uncle Vanya, which recently premiered at Lincoln Center.

Schreck also works extensively in film and television. She is currently writing a screenplay with Sarah Polley for Warner Bros. and developing a live-action She-Ra.

💙 WORKSHOP OVERVIEW: Heidi will begin by sharing a few reflections about her award-winning play, What the Constitution Means to Me and its relevance in the current socio-political climate. She will then share some insights on writing about political subjects from a personal point of view and lead a variety of writing exercises. Immediately following Heidi’s workshop, Fringe Benefits will host a 30-minute Brainstorming Session so that participants can talk with each other about ideas raised by Heidi’s talk and exercises, and brainstorm possible future artivist civic engagement collaborations.

💜 This is going to be a LIVELY workshop designed for theatre artists, activists, video makers and others looking to develop connections between their lived experiences, the causes they care about, and the audiences they hope to engage.

🗽 With Heidi's workshop, Fringe Benefits is launching our "Constitutional Crash Out!" initiative through which we are hosting "Get Out the Vote" video-script development workshops and sponsoring a video-making contest. We're collaborating with youth to create, share and promote video shorts inspiring civic engagement and voting. Eligible videos will be considered for awards and a public screening. Find out more at www.cootieshots.org/constitutional-crash-out .

👉🏾👉🏿👉🏽And again… Please remember to apply for Heidi's workshop by September 26! APPLY HERE - https://forms.gle/qgXBBLBRtTL8rJJs8

We look forward to hearing from you!

Norma Bowles, Artistic Director
Fringe Benefits Theatre
and
Amy Sarno, Josie K. Vano & Peyton Matik
Co-Producers, Can We Be Reel? and Constitutional Crash Out!
Two new Fringe Benefits arts activism initiatives

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

Follow us on Instagram ( , and .We.Be.Reel) to receive updates and engage with theatre & video artivists!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!!! 🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽

The Carol and James Collins Foundation, The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, Liberty Hill Foundation / Kicking Assets, the Pamela Alma Weymouth Justice Fund, the Strickland Family Foundation, and all of Fringe Benefits Theatre’s individual donors!

05/25/2026

⭐Applications are due this Saturday, May 30 for “Theatrical Activism & the First Amendment: Freedom of Speech & Assembly in Creative Protest,” a FREE Online Master Class with 2 award-winning presenters: Artist, Activist & Scholar L.M. Bogad & ACLU SoCal Lawyer Peter Eliasberg! ⭐ We hope you can join us online Saturday, June 6, 1pm to 4pm (Pacific)! ⭐

💥Applications are due this Saturday, May 30.💥

👉🏾👉🏽👉🏿APPLY HERE : https://forms.gle/sVERGVrkweLZjFFN9

💜OVERVIEW: In this Master Class, Bogad and Eliasberg will share and discuss examples of theatrical and artistic nonviolent activism. Bogad will explore the history, ethics, aesthetics, and practical concerns of these actions as key examples of social movement campaigns for social justice and democracy. Eliasberg will outline crucial First Amendment rights and protections to consider when preparing and performing these kinds of campaigns. The powerful sociodramas created by the American Civil Rights Movement and the American Indian Movement and ACT-UP, and more playful examples by recent groups, create a framework for the talk. We will discuss how theatrical techniques can inform or enhance the impact of public demonstrations, and the importance of serious play, surprise and irresistible images. Bogad draws on decades of experience as an artist-activist, having worked with most of the more contemporary groups he discusses as a writer, performer and strategist. Eliasberg draws on his experience as Chief Counsel at the ACLU, defending the free speech rights of student protesters against both administration actions and violence from outside groups.

💙PRESENTERS:

🩵L.M. Bogad is an author, performer, and professor of Cinema and Digital Media and Performance Studies at U.C. Davis. Recent awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, and major grants from the Creative Work Fund and the California Arts Council. He has published three books of stage plays and essays on how creative, theatrical activism can support human and civil rights campaigns and resist authoritarian propaganda: Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements, Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of Serious Play, and Performing Truth: Works of Radical Memory for Times of Social Amnesia. In 2025, Tactical Performance was translated to Farsi and published in Iran by “Woman, Life, Freedom” activists. He has performed and led workshops in twenty countries on five continents, from Chile to Finland to Egypt.

Bogad was the “Art and Controversy” Fellow at Carnegie Mellon, the “Humanities and Political Conflict” Fellow at Arizona State, the “Arts and Publics” Fellow at Northwestern, and a Charlotte Newcombe Fellow at the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. He has recently worked with North Bay Jobs With Justice on a farmworkers' social and ecological justice campaign, founded Delivering Democracy, a troupe of singing and dancing mailboxes combating voter suppression and disinformation, and hosts the podcast The Plague. He is a veteran of the Lincoln Center Director’s Laboratory and a cofounder of the Clown Army.

🩵Peter Eliasberg joined the ACLU in 1996 and served as the managing attorney and the Manheim Family attorney for First Amendment Rights until February 2011, when he became legal director for the affiliate. Since 2016, he has served as Chief Counsel and Director of the affiliate’s First Amendment and Democracy Project. During his tenure Peter has worked on cases involving the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, disability discrimination and educational equity, among others. He represented Frank Buono in federal district court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court in an Establishment Clause challenge to the presence of a cross on federal land in Buono v. Salazar. Peter represented a class of bus riders with disabilities who sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority over the agency’s failure to provide accessible buses in Beauchamp v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority. In Williams v. State of California, he represented a class of school children challenging the State of California's failure to provide basic education necessities ― including clean and safe school facilities, adequate textbooks, and trained teachers.

Peter graduated from Harvard Law School magna cm laude and clerked for both Judge Stanley Sporkin of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Peter Eliasberg, as Chief Counsel at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, has been heavily involved in legal actions and advocacy surrounding the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests and encampments at UCLA and in a First Amendment case against the Department of Homeland Security for its mistreatment of journalists, protesters, and legal observers during protests against immigration actions in the Southern California area.

💚 This is going to be a LIVELY workshop designed for theatre artists and activists looking to add more tools to their social justice toolkits, including artistic strategies, safety considerations, and more!

👉🏾👉🏿👉🏽And again… APPLY BY May 30 - https://forms.gle/sVERGVrkweLZjFFN9

We look forward to hearing from you!
Norma Bowles, Artistic Director
Fringe Benefits Theatre
and
Amy Sarno, Josie K. Vano & Peyton Matik
Co-Producers, Can We Be Reel? and Constitutional Crash Out!
Two new Fringe Benefits arts activism initiatives

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

Follow us on Instagram ( , and .We.Be.Reel) to receive updates and engage with theatre & video artivists!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!!! 🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽
The Carol and James Collins Foundation, The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, Liberty Hill Foundation / Kicking Assets, Los Angeles County, Department of Arts and Culture, the Strickland Family Foundation, and all of Fringe Benefits Theatre’s individual donors!

04/30/2026

🗽We hope you can join Fringe Benefits Theatre for ““Theatrical Activism & the First Amendment: Freedom of Speech & Assembly in Creative Protest,” a FREE Online Master Class with 2 award-winning presenters: Artist, Activist & Scholar L.M. Bogad & ACLU SoCal Lawyer Peter Eliasberg! 🗽JOIN US online Saturday, June 6, 1pm to 4pm (Pacific)! 💥This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!💥

⭐Applications are due Saturday, May 30.⭐

👉🏾👉🏽👉🏿APPLY HERE : https://forms.gle/sVERGVrkweLZjFFN9

💜OVERVIEW: In this Master Class, Bogad and Eliasberg will share and discuss examples of theatrical and artistic nonviolent activism. Bogad will explore the history, ethics, aesthetics, and practical concerns of these actions as key examples of social movement campaigns for social justice and democracy. Eliasberg will outline crucial First Amendment rights and protections to consider when preparing and performing these kinds of campaigns. The powerful sociodramas created by the American Civil Rights Movement and the American Indian Movement and ACT-UP, and more playful examples by recent groups, create a framework for the talk. We will discuss how theatrical techniques can inform or enhance the impact of public demonstrations, and the importance of serious play, surprise and irresistible images. Bogad draws on decades of experience as an artist-activist, having worked with most of the more contemporary groups he discusses as a writer, performer and strategist. Eliasberg draws on his experience as Chief Counsel at the ACLU, defending the free speech rights of student protesters against both administration actions and violence from outside groups.

💙PRESENTERS:

L.M. Bogad is an author, performer, and professor of Cinema and Digital Media and Performance Studies at U.C. Davis. Recent awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, and major grants from the Creative Work Fund and the California Arts Council. He has published three books of stage plays and essays on how creative, theatrical activism can support human and civil rights campaigns and resist authoritarian propaganda: Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements, Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of Serious Play, and Performing Truth: Works of Radical Memory for Times of Social Amnesia. In 2025, Tactical Performance was translated to Farsi and published in Iran by “Woman, Life, Freedom” activists. He has performed and led workshops in twenty countries on five continents, from Chile to Finland to Egypt.

Bogad was the “Art and Controversy” Fellow at Carnegie Mellon, the “Humanities and Political Conflict” Fellow at Arizona State, the “Arts and Publics” Fellow at Northwestern, and a Charlotte Newcombe Fellow at the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. He has recently worked with North Bay Jobs With Justice on a farmworkers' social and ecological justice campaign, founded Delivering Democracy, a troupe of singing and dancing mailboxes combating voter suppression and disinformation, and hosts the podcast The Plague. He is a veteran of the Lincoln Center Director’s Laboratory and a cofounder of the Clown Army.

Peter Eliasberg joined the ACLU in 1996 and served as the managing attorney and the Manheim Family attorney for First Amendment Rights until February 2011, when he became legal director for the affiliate. Since 2016, he has served as Chief Counsel and Director of the affiliate’s First Amendment and Democracy Project. During his tenure Peter has worked on cases involving the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, disability discrimination and educational equity, among others. He represented Frank Buono in federal district court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court in an Establishment Clause challenge to the presence of a cross on federal land in Buono v. Salazar. Peter represented a class of bus riders with disabilities who sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority over the agency’s failure to provide accessible buses in Beauchamp v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority. In Williams v. State of California, he represented a class of school children challenging the State of California's failure to provide basic education necessities ― including clean and safe school facilities, adequate textbooks, and trained teachers.

Peter graduated from Harvard Law School magna cm laude and clerked for both Judge Stanley Sporkin of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Peter Eliasberg, as Chief Counsel at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, has been heavily involved in legal actions and advocacy surrounding the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests and encampments at UCLA and in a First Amendment case against the Department of Homeland Security for its mistreatment of journalists, protesters, and legal observers during protests against immigration actions in the Southern California area.

💚 This is going to be a LIVELY workshop designed for theatre artists and activists looking to add more tools to their social justice toolkits, including artistic strategies, safety considerations, and more!

👉🏾👉🏿👉🏽And again… APPLY BY May 30 - https://forms.gle/sVERGVrkweLZjFFN9

We look forward to hearing from you!

Norma Bowles, Artistic Director
Fringe Benefits Theatre
and
Amy Sarno, Josie K. Vano & Peyton Matik
Co-Producers, Can We Be Reel? and Constitutional Crash Out!
Two new Fringe Benefits arts activism initiatives

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

Follow us on Instagram ( , and .We.Be.Reel) to receive updates and engage with theatre & video artivists!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!!! 🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽
The Carol and James Collins Foundation, The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, Liberty Hill Foundation / Kicking Assets, Los Angeles County, Department of Arts and Culture, the Strickland Family Foundation, and all of Fringe Benefits Theatre’s individual donors!

04/18/2026

🗽It's gives us great pleasure to invite you to join Fringe Benefits Theatre for ““Theatrical Activism & the First Amendment: Freedom of Speech & Assembly in Creative Protest,” a FREE Online Master Class with 2 award-winning presenters: Artist, Activist & Scholar L.M. Bogad & ACLU SoCal Lawyer Peter Eliasberg! 🗽We hope you can join us online Saturday, June 6, 1pm to 4pm (Pacific)! 💥This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!💥

⭐Applications are due Saturday, May 30.⭐

👉🏾👉🏽👉🏿APPLY HERE : https://forms.gle/sVERGVrkweLZjFFN9

💜OVERVIEW: In this Master Class, Bogad and Eliasberg will share and discuss examples of theatrical and artistic nonviolent activism. Bogad will explore the history, ethics, aesthetics, and practical concerns of these actions as key examples of social movement campaigns for social justice and democracy. Eliasberg will outline crucial First Amendment rights and protections to consider when preparing and performing these kinds of campaigns. The powerful sociodramas created by the American Civil Rights Movement and the American Indian Movement and ACT-UP, and more playful examples by recent groups, create a framework for the talk. We will discuss how theatrical techniques can inform or enhance the impact of public demonstrations, and the importance of serious play, surprise and irresistible images. Bogad draws on decades of experience as an artist-activist, having worked with most of the more contemporary groups he discusses as a writer, performer and strategist. Eliasberg draws on his experience as Chief Counsel at the ACLU, defending the free speech rights of student protesters against both administration actions and violence from outside groups.

💙PRESENTERS:

L.M. Bogad is an author, performer, and professor of Cinema and Digital Media and Performance Studies at U.C. Davis. Recent awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, and major grants from the Creative Work Fund and the California Arts Council. He has published three books of stage plays and essays on how creative, theatrical activism can support human and civil rights campaigns and resist authoritarian propaganda: Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements, Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of Serious Play, and Performing Truth: Works of Radical Memory for Times of Social Amnesia. In 2025, Tactical Performance was translated to Farsi and published in Iran by “Woman, Life, Freedom” activists. He has performed and led workshops in twenty countries on five continents, from Chile to Finland to Egypt.

Bogad was the “Art and Controversy” Fellow at Carnegie Mellon, the “Humanities and Political Conflict” Fellow at Arizona State, the “Arts and Publics” Fellow at Northwestern, and a Charlotte Newcombe Fellow at the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. He has recently worked with North Bay Jobs With Justice on a farmworkers' social and ecological justice campaign, founded Delivering Democracy, a troupe of singing and dancing mailboxes combating voter suppression and disinformation, and hosts the podcast The Plague. He is a veteran of the Lincoln Center Director’s Laboratory and a cofounder of the Clown Army.

Peter Eliasberg joined the ACLU in 1996 and served as the managing attorney and the Manheim Family attorney for First Amendment Rights until February 2011, when he became legal director for the affiliate. Since 2016, he has served as Chief Counsel and Director of the affiliate’s First Amendment and Democracy Project. During his tenure Peter has worked on cases involving the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, disability discrimination and educational equity, among others. He represented Frank Buono in federal district court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court in an Establishment Clause challenge to the presence of a cross on federal land in Buono v. Salazar. Peter represented a class of bus riders with disabilities who sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority over the agency’s failure to provide accessible buses in Beauchamp v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority. In Williams v. State of California, he represented a class of school children challenging the State of California's failure to provide basic education necessities ― including clean and safe school facilities, adequate textbooks, and trained teachers.

Peter graduated from Harvard Law School magna cm laude and clerked for both Judge Stanley Sporkin of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Peter Eliasberg, as Chief Counsel at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, has been heavily involved in legal actions and advocacy surrounding the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests and encampments at UCLA and in a First Amendment case against the Department of Homeland Security for its mistreatment of journalists, protesters, and legal observers during protests against immigration actions in the Southern California area.

💚 This is going to be a LIVELY workshop designed for theatre artists and activists looking to add more tools to their social justice toolkits, including artistic strategies, safety considerations, and more!

👉🏾👉🏿👉🏽And again… APPLY BY May 30 - https://forms.gle/sVERGVrkweLZjFFN9

We look forward to hearing from you!

Norma Bowles, Artistic Director
Fringe Benefits Theatre
and
Amy Sarno, Josie K. Vano & Peyton Matik
Co-Producers, Can We Be Reel? and Constitutional Crash Out!
Two new Fringe Benefits arts activism initiatives

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

Follow us on Instagram ( , and .We.Be.Reel) to receive updates and engage with theatre & video artivists!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!!! 🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽
The Carol and James Collins Foundation, The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, Liberty Hill Foundation / Kicking Assets, Los Angeles County, Department of Arts and Culture, the Strickland Family Foundation, and all of Fringe Benefits Theatre’s individual donors!

03/14/2026

⭐TODAY'S THE DAY! Applications are due for our latest FAB FREE Arts Activism Workshop 👉🏾👉🏽👉🏿APPLY HERE : https://forms.gle/FjuaDNSLXLXTeAGu5Friends

“Arts Activism Strategies: Then & There / Here & Now,” a FREE Interactive Online Workshop with GROUNDBREAKING scholar/practitioners Jan Cohen-Cruz & Rad Pereira! ❤️Saturday, March 21, 1pm to 4pm (Pacific) - Join us online!

💜Overview: Jan Cohen-Cruz will share five strategies for public performances that she documented in her 1998 collection, Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology. Cultural worker, performing artist, healer, and educator Rad Pereira will respond to each, climate and in order to most effectively engage audiences. Then participants, in small groups, will try one of the strategies using immigration rights as the topic. We’ll end with all the groups sharing their designs for a public performance now inspired by that strategy.

💙PRESENTERS:
Grounded in the resistant theater of the late 1960s and early '70s, Jan Cohen-Cruz was a member of the NYC Street Theater/Jonah Project and co-facilitated a theater workshop in a men's maximum-security prison. After receiving her PhD in Performance Studies at NYU, she taught in the Drama Department for 28 years, founding their applied theater minor. She served as director of Imagining America from 2007–2012 and then as director of field research for A Blade of Grass.Cohen-Cruz is co-editor with Mady Schutzman of two books about Augusto Boal and has been a freelance practitioner of his techniques. She edited Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology and wrote Engaging Performance: Theater as Call and Response; Local Acts: Community Based Performance in the US, and Remapping Performance: Common Ground, Uncommon Partners. She co-authored, with Rad Pereira, Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965–2020, by Those Who Lived It. Her most recent book is See Me: Prison Theater Workshops and Love. Cohen-Cruz continues to write and offer workshops.

Rad Pereira is a multi-spirit mixed Black, Indigenous Brazilian, Jewish (im)migrant artist currently based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Their creative practices range from social sculpture, to popular theatrical and TV/film performance, to participatory liberatory artmaking and healing that weaves together an Afro-futurist longing for transformative justice and q***r (re)Indigenization of culture. Currently, they as the Director of Engagement and Impact with New York Stage & Film, a community advocate at Ensemble Studio Theater, and serve on the co-leadership team at Network of Ensemble Theaters. Rad is also also a facilitator, educator, mediator and cultural organizer.

Rad and Jan's book about socially engaged performance and social justice --- Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965-2020, by Those Who Lived It --- was published in June 2022 by New Village Press.

💚This is going to be a LIVELY, INTERACTIVE workshop, designed primarily for undergrads, recent grads, & early career folks interested in creating theatre for social justice.

👉🏾👉🏿👉🏽And again… APPLY BY March 14 -
https://forms.gle/FjuaDNSLXLXTeAGu5

We look forward to hearing from you!
Norma Bowles, Artistic Director
Fringe Benefits

Amy Sarno, Josie K. Vano & Peyton Matik
Co-Producers, Can We Be Reel?
Can We Be Reel? is a new Fringe Benefits arts activism initiative.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

Follow us on Instagram ( and .We.Be.Reel) to receive updates and engage with theatre & video artivists!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!!! 🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽
The Carol and James Collins Foundation, The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, Liberty Hill Foundation / Kicking Assets, Los Angeles County, Department of Arts and Culture, the Strickland Family Foundation, and all of Fringe Benefits Theatre’s individual donors!

03/08/2026

⭐Hi y'all - Quick Reminder: Applications are due Saturday, March 14.👉🏾👉🏽👉🏿APPLY HERE : https://forms.gle/FjuaDNSLXLXTeAGu5Friends

“Arts Activism Strategies: Then & There / Here & Now,” a FREE Interactive Online Workshop with GROUNDBREAKING scholar/practitioners Jan Cohen-Cruz & Rad Pereira! ❤️Saturday, March 21, 1pm to 4pm (Pacific) - Join us online!

💜Overview: Jan Cohen-Cruz will share five strategies for public performances that she documented in her 1998 collection, Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology. Cultural worker, performing artist, healer, and educator Rad Pereira will respond to each, climate and in order to most effectively engage audiences. Then participants, in small groups, will try one of the strategies using immigration rights as the topic. We’ll end with all the groups sharing their designs for a public performance now inspired by that strategy.

💙PRESENTERS:

Grounded in the resistant theater of the late 1960s and early '70s, Jan Cohen-Cruz was a member of the NYC Street Theater/Jonah Project and co-facilitated a theater workshop in a men's maximum-security prison. After receiving her PhD in Performance Studies at NYU, she taught in the Drama Department for 28 years, founding their applied theater minor. She served as director of Imagining America from 2007–2012 and then as director of field research for A Blade of Grass.Cohen-Cruz is co-editor with Mady Schutzman of two books about Augusto Boal and has been a freelance practitioner of his techniques. She edited Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology and wrote Engaging Performance: Theater as Call and Response; Local Acts: Community Based Performance in the US, and Remapping Performance: Common Ground, Uncommon Partners. She co-authored, with Rad Pereira, Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965–2020, by Those Who Lived It. Her most recent book is See Me: Prison Theater Workshops and Love. Cohen-Cruz continues to write and offer workshops.

Rad Pereira is a multi-spirit mixed Black, Indigenous Brazilian, Jewish (im)migrant artist currently based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Their creative practices range from social sculpture, to popular theatrical and TV/film performance, to participatory liberatory artmaking and healing that weaves together an Afro-futurist longing for transformative justice and q***r (re)Indigenization of culture. Currently, they as the Director of Engagement and Impact with New York Stage & Film, a community advocate at Ensemble Studio Theater, and serve on the co-leadership team at Network of Ensemble Theaters. Rad is also also a facilitator, educator, mediator and cultural organizer

Rad and Jan's book about socially engaged performance and social justice --- Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965-2020, by Those Who Lived It --- was published in June 2022 by New Village Press.

💚This is going to be a LIVELY, INTERACTIVE workshop, designed primarily for undergrads, recent grads, & early career folks interested in creating theatre for social justice.

👉🏾👉🏿👉🏽And again… APPLY BY March 14 -
https://forms.gle/FjuaDNSLXLXTeAGu5

We look forward to hearing from you!
Norma Bowles, Artistic Director
Fringe Benefits Theatre

Amy Sarno, Josie K. Vano & Peyton Matik
Co-Producers, Can We Be Reel?
Can We Be Reel? is a new Fringe Benefits arts activism initiative.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

Follow us on Instagram ( and .We.Be.Reel) to receive updates and engage with theatre & video artivists!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!!! 🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽
The Carol and James Collins Foundation, The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, Liberty Hill Foundation / Kicking Assets, Los Angeles County, Department of Arts and Culture, the Strickland Family Foundation, and all of Fringe Benefits Theatre’s individual donors!

03/02/2026

❤️Hi Friends, Colleagues and Fellow Artivists! We hope you can join us -- Fringe Benefits Theatre -- for “Arts Activism Strategies: Then & There / Here & Now,” a FREE Interactive Online Workshop with GROUNDBREAKING scholar/practitioners Jan Cohen-Cruz & Rad Pereira! ❤️ We'll be online Saturday, March 21, 1pm to 4pm (Pacific)!

⭐Applications are due Saturday, March 14.⭐

👉🏾👉🏽👉🏿APPLY HERE : https://forms.gle/FjuaDNSLXLXTeAGu5

💜Overview: Jan Cohen-Cruz will share five strategies for public performances that she documented in her 1998 collection, Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology. Cultural worker, performing artist, healer, and educator Rad Pereira will respond to each, suggesting how the strategies could be updated and modified in light of the current socio-political climate and in order to most effectively engage audiences. Then participants, in small groups, will try one of the strategies using immigration rights as the topic. We’ll end with all the groups sharing their designs for a public performance now inspired by that strategy

💙PRESENTERS:

Grounded in the resistant theater of the late 1960s and early '70s, Jan Cohen-Cruz was a member of the NYC Street Theater/Jonah Project and co-facilitated a theater workshop in a men's maximum-security prison. After receiving her PhD in Performance Studies at NYU, she taught in the Drama Department for 28 years, founding their applied theater minor. She served as director of Imagining America from 2007–2012 and then as director of field research for A Blade of Grass.Cohen-Cruz is co-editor with Mady Schutzman of two books about Augusto Boal and has been a freelance practitioner of his techniques. She edited Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology and wrote Engaging Performance: Theater as Call and Response; Local Acts: Community Based Performance in the US, and Remapping Performance: Common Ground, Uncommon Partners. She co-authored, with Rad Pereira, Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965–2020, by Those Who Lived It. Her most recent book is See Me: Prison Theater Workshops and Love. Cohen-Cruz continues to write and offer workshops.

Rad Pereira is a multi-spirit mixed Black, Indigenous Brazilian, Jewish (im)migrant artist currently based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Their creative practices range from social sculpture, to popular theatrical and TV/film performance, to participatory liberatory artmaking and healing that weaves together an Afro-futurist longing for transformative justice and q***r (re)Indigenization of culture. Currently, they as the Director of Engagement and Impact with New York Stage & Film, a community advocate at Ensemble Studio Theater, and serve on the co-leadership team at Network of Ensemble Theaters. Rad is also also a facilitator, educator, mediator and cultural organizer

Rad and Jan's book about socially engaged performance and social justice --- Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965-2020, by Those Who Lived It --- was published in June 2022 by New Village Press.

💚This is going to be a LIVELY, INTERACTIVE workshop, designed primarily for undergrads, recent grads, & early career folks interested in creating theatre for social justice.

👉🏾👉🏿👉🏽And again… APPLY BY March 14 -
https://forms.gle/FjuaDNSLXLXTeAGu5

We look forward to hearing from you!

Norma Bowles, Artistic Director
Fringe Benefits Theatre

Amy Sarno, Josie K. Vano & Peyton Matik
Co-Producers, Can We Be Reel?
Can We Be Reel? is a new Fringe Benefits arts activism initiative.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

Follow us on Instagram ( and .We.Be.Reel) to receive updates and engage with theatre & video artivists!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵

🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!!! 🙏🏽❤️🙏🏽
The Carol and James Collins Foundation, The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, Liberty Hill Foundation / Kicking Assets, Los Angeles County, Department of Arts and Culture, the Strickland Family Foundation, and all of Fringe Benefits Theatre’s individual donors!

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