Meet Heather Wahl

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

Heather, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

Collaboration and rest are two ways I like to recharge my creativity. I find working with other people on a project exposes me to different worldviews and unexpected Ideas – a collaborator might suggest something Id never think of, or take my idea in an exciting new direction.

Rest is something I value but have to remind myself to take time for. Rest recharges my creative mind – finding a pause allows my creativity to flow in a way it can’t when I’m busy and stressed. Ideas come to me when I’m not trying to force them and at surprising times – like a long car trip – when I’m finally relaxed. I find rest also allows for a renewed perspective – if I step away, I tend to notice what’s missing or what truly works.

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

I founded Speranza Theatre Company, a non-profit women’s theatre company, shortly after graduating with an MFA in Acting. We offer year-round educational programming to ages 5-adult, present original plays – both contemporary and historical – and host community-engaging events, such as Open Mic Nights or readings of new plays with artist talkbacks.

Our mission is to share stories by and about women, as this is a demographic whose stories are often overlooked both in the history books and today on stage and screen. We believe these stories are important, representation matters, and it makes a difference who is telling the stories. Because of this, we make a point to hire women+ as the majority of our creative teams – we certainly employ men as well, but we purposely flip the traditional hiring ratios in our field and offer as many opportunities to women as possible.

Speranza shares stories with our community, including little-known local history. In recent years, we’ve produced original historical plays including:

– Unveiling Liberty – It’s 1886 and ten-year-old Isabelle is enamored of the enormous statue about to be unveiled in New York harbor. Her father and brother are going to go watch the dedication, and Isabelle doesn’t understand why she’s not allowed, just because she’s a girl. But it turns out that the very thing Isabelle loves about the statue- that a woman has been chosen to represent liberty- has drawn the attention of the Woman’s Suffrage Association. They have something to say about it and a daring plan to make themselves heard. Meanwhile Jackie, a young black woman, has her own thoughts about this statue, but is she even at liberty to express them? With cameo appearances by Lillian Devereux Blake, Emma Lazarus, Joseph Pulitzer and others, this play explores the state of women’s rights at the time of the birth of an iconic landmark.

– Votes For Women – features Alice Paul, the fight for the 19th amendment & the (still unratified) Equal Rights Amendment. It’s 1913, and, thousands of women gather in Washington, D.C. to march for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. For a family audience of all ages, this emotional story is told from the perspective of the women who led the charge and paved the way for the fight for equality. This play was also filmed at Alice Paul’s childhood home.

– A Chain Around The World – Travel around the world with Nellie Bly as she races to beat the record set by the fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days!” On November 14, 1889, The World’s convention- defying reporter set sail from Hoboken NJ on a daring adventure that awed the nation and changed her life forever.

– Walk By The Way of the Moon – Ten-year old Fleta Hazel’s enslaved family makes the difficult choice to run for their freedom. Not knowing what’s ahead, young Fleta Hazel must find the courage for the long and dangerous trip, fueled by hope for a new life at their final stop, Jersey City.

– Mary & Eleanor – The first democratic woman elected to Congress, Jersey City’s Mary T. Norton, seizes a rare moment to share her bold vision for the nation and the role women must play in it. Her audience? None other than Eleanor Roosevelt.

– In Her Footsteps – Step into history with IN HER FOOTSTEPS, a fun, family-friendly event that brings great women from the past to life through dynamic performances, multimedia, and hands-on activities. This celebration of women in history is as engaging as it is empowering, perfect for families looking to be entertained and inspired.

Next up is a new play celebrating women’s roles during the Revolutionary War as spies.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Flexibility — Being adaptable helps you navigate unexpected challenges and seize new opportunities. It’s essential for growth, especially when things don’t go as planned. We found this to be essential navigating the pandemic and many other challenges that have come our way.

Mission Driven — Having a clear purpose or mission fuels motivation and keeps you focused. It aligns your efforts with something bigger than yourself, which creates a lasting impact. Keeping this focus has both helped us simplify (asking ourselves “does this project fit out mission”) and stay consistent with what we share with our community.

Community — Building and engaging with a community provides support, diverse perspectives, and collaboration. It’s often the source of inspiration and resilience. When we switched locations from NYC to NJ, it became clear that we had found our community. This keeps us focused and engaged, remembering WHO we are sharing our art with and WHY storytelling is important.

The best advice I was ever given was to “find your community.” It took us several years to accomplish this, and I didn’t understand the advice until we truly did find our community, but this has made a world of difference for us. It has given us a sense of purpose, an audience, and even a source of funding. I would add to this, to try not to compare yourself to others – certainly a difficult task, especially with social media. Everyone’s journey is unique, and constantly measuring yourself against others can create feelings of inadequacy or self-doubt. It can distract you from your goals creating unnecessary stress or even drain your energy and creativity.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

In the past 12 months, I’ve grown the most by learning when to say no and setting boundaries. This has not always been easy – sometimes I worried if I made the right decision – but in the end, I’ve found that letting go of commitments that do not help me grow, and setting boundaries, has brought me peace. This is still a work in progress, but some benefits I’ve noticed are increased time, energy, and confidence. I like to keep inspirational quotes on my desk that I rotate periodically. The quotes that inspired this recent shift were “Do one thing every day that scares you” and “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”, both by Eleanor Roosevelt. Reading these when I’m feeling uncertain helps me refocus and make productive decisions.

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Image Credits

Photo credit Lev Gorn, Jen Brown, Corey Torpie & Heather Wahl

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