Meet Julia Greer

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julia Greer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?

I really believe that theater and making art should come from a generosity of spirit and be very community minded. I had a mentor, the unbelievable Paula Vogel, and she used to say there are “teachers” and “takers”, in this industry and I always strive to be a teacher. I think something I’ve learned as I’ve been in the game a little bit longer is that the scarcity mindset only hurts us and the more we share resources and prop each other up, the more we all succeed and can make theater happen.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of The Hearth, a theater company dedicated to developing and producing new plays by women and people of marginalized genders. The Hearth exists to address a dual need in the theater community: To narrow the industry-wide gender gap by welcoming more women, trans, and non-binary artists and artists of underrepresented genders into the field and to launch the careers of emerging artists by offering them otherwise rare opportunities for institutional support, development, and production of new works. We have launched the careers of many theater artists and provide an increasingly rare platform for emerging artists. I am also an actor, often acting in Hearth projects as well as other plays and the occasional movie.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

When I first started out I had such a hunger for any and all things theater, I read countless plays, tried to see everything that I could get tickets to and was eager to be in any room that would have me. This allowed me to hone in on the company I was trying to build and really find and specify the gap that we would hopefully fill.

When my co-founder, Emma Miller, and I formed the company we were intentional about keeping our operation small. We knew that we shared a similar taste and aesthetic, and we didn’t want anyone else coming in and disrupting that before we got our company off the ground. I think sticking with people who you really align with and have the same passion as you is so key as you build something.

Ask for help, ask questions and ask people to have coffee. People, at least artists and theater folks in my experience, are often way more generous with their time and knowledge than you might think. Send someone an email and see if they’ll find a time to meet with you. But then….really have questions for them, don’t try to just pitch yourself or prove your worth, ask them how they did it and soak in what they have to say. You can learn a lot and make great connections that way.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

The number one obstacle I’m currently facing is how to grow the company in a sustainable and purposeful way. Access to arts funding in this country is dwindling, there is a strain on resources and space in New York City, and even larger institutions are struggling. I am trying to position myself to grow and fill some of those gaps and work with larger institutions to produce more work while not losing our ethos and aesthetic at The Hearth. We have been a pretty small operation until now, and just came off a radically successful theater season ourselves, so I am trying to capitalize on that as much as possible and meet with anyone with knowledge or experience either growing a company or producing on a larger scale. I’m not sure where it will lead but am in a moment of intaking a lot of information in order to narrow down the next right steps.

Contact Info:

• Website: thehearththeater.com, juliagreer.co
• Instagram: @thehearthco
• Twitter: @thehearthco

Image Credits

Julia Weinberg (Jubilee Roll), Travis Emery Hackett