"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." ~ AristotleThe power of drama is in the ability to navigate and question complex human interactions and conflicts by holding a mirror up to nature. My practice of teaching theatre focuses on the facilitation of community building and critical thinking skills. In practicing drama, students and participants develop empathy, compassion, creativity and skills in literacy, collaboration and communication. With a student based teaching style, I strive to start from where the students are, while making the experience playful, fun and challenging. Utilizing, process drama, forum theatre, theatre in education as well as playbuilding and scripted theatre, participants examine their world critically while building competency in the art form of theatre. Pedagogically, I’m interested in applying theatre to look at areas of social justice and civics. Firmly rooted in the liberatory pedagogy of Paulo Freire and bell hooks, I view the practice of teaching as the opportunity to create a truly democratic space of creative freedom and mutual respect. As an applied theater practitioner I am interested in work that examines questions of social justice, and critiques the extraction economy in the US and elsewhere.With a background in improvisation and devised theatre, I've developed work that examines these critical issues. As an actor, I've been drawn to mostly dark comedy and strong female roles, especially in classical theater. As a director, I like to push the boundaries between improvisation, physical theater including viewpoints and other improvisation techniques and devised work.