We were lucky to catch up with JRich and Mer, founders of The Hall Theater, and have shared our conversation below.
So good to have you with us today! We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Our theater company was birthed from the very ideas that became our mission; storytelling and conversation. Candid coffee talks between two kindred spirits with shared theatrical roots, shifted into unbounded exchanges around a mutual ambition to create more meaning in our lives and community. As theater kids and trained thespians who grew up around the entertainment business, we found joy and respect in performing, yet were drawn to create a theater company aimed at inspiring empathy, with communal catharsis at the heart of its process + purpose.
Awesome! So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Gladly! We launched our first season in 2020 – WOMB presented birth stories spanning generations from dozens of mothers, as well as a post-performance town hall conversation around medicated and unmedicated birth. herWOMB, our second iteration of this topic, adapted to the 2020-2021 lockdown. Stories of unique family creation were shared through video art. Storytellers focused on IVF, adoption, gender identity + mortality, and our town hall, which took place on IG Live, centered around family creation within times of crisis.
From here, we produced a one woman show which was presented at the 2023 Fringe Festival. myWOMB follows the journey of a mother preparing for birth + death as she navigates through the pitfalls of the medical sector’s systemized and habitual dismissal of reproductive pain, in order to save her own life. Our post performance town hall explored the responsibilities around ensuring a patient’s needs are met within the medical system.
We are now developing a final iteration of our WOMB series that explores prenatal, birth, and postpartum care told from the perspectives of hospital staff + birth workers, which we will present at this year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival.
Alongside the completion of our WOMB series + preparations for a new season with a fresh topic in 2025, we are in the midst of launching beta versions of our educational Community Activation Program (CAP) at local high schools in the SF valley. This project adapts The Hall Theater Model into site specific curriculums for students + staff in high schools and universities.
CAP workshops are social-emotional learning sessions. Each program aims to equalize + strengthen student exposure to conversational tools that can impact their lives intellectually, creatively, and socially. In order to break free from the echo chamber of algorithms so many young people are navigating, we must create space to recognize their opinions and needs as valuable while teaching and practicing communication skills.
Each aspect of our model, from the relationship built between storytellers and players, to the concluding town hall conversation, is meant to generate healthy dialogue and critical comparison without judgment. #cancelcancelculture
I love the idea of using your theater’s model to educate others. Perhaps you can share a few qualities that impacted your journey towards this direction?
1) Practicing the power of pause is key to active listening
2) “Yes and…” is helpful in pretty much every situation
3) With gratitude, optimism is sustainable – MJ Fox
Yes! And…what advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey?
A good idea is only great if it happens. When planning + pursuing our purpose, we consistently ask ourselves and one another: “is this reasonable?”
While this line of questioning does not always align with the creative spark and passionate drive that is also required to succeed, our ability to cultivate + harness potentiality into productivity has been integral to our sustainability thus far.
Realistic goals lead to steady growth. Checks and balances help the team commit to playing the long game without burning out!
Our advice to self and others: focus on real times in real time. We recommend working with reality; real stories, real schedules, with real adjustments made for things like: political movements, jobs that pay bills, and babies + family creation. From here we bring in theater to explore the-thing-that’s-hard-to-talk-about (often divisive “cancel culture” topics such as mental health treatment, gun legislation, or technology addiction). Active listening garners space for catharsis.
We want to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect, and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We are always open to co-creating with individuals + communities who align with our mission! At this time, we are specifically interested in bringing our workshops into schools, universities, and other educational institutions. If you are a student, teacher, or administrator who may be interested, please get in touch [email protected] We also want to connect with investors and grant programs that believe in the healing power of the arts! Holler at us!
For those interested in collaborating as a storyteller, presenter, or to join forces in any capacity, get in touch through our submissions + volunteer pages and join our mailing list.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thehalltheater.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehalltheater
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/thehalltheater
- Youtube: http://youtube.com/@thehalltheater
- SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/thehalltheater
Image Credits
Poster Images – Mer Barko Photos – Selena Moshell
