Image Credits: Inheritance Theater Project

Jon Adam Ross: Executive Director and Co-Founding Artist of Inheritance Theater Project

Building relationships across divides through collaborative playmaking.

Spring 2023

Jon Adam Ross is the founding artist and Executive Director of Inheritance Theatre Project, and has spent more than 20 years making art with communities around the country as an actor, playwright, and teaching artist. Working with intergenerational, intersectional and interfaith communities to build relationships across divides through collaborative theater projects inspired by shared cultural touchstones. Since its founding in 2015, the company has guided over 10,000 people in the creation of original theater pieces in 16 cities across the U.S and Rubona, Rwanda. The content of these plays is determined by three interconnected elements; the history of the place, the lived experiences of the people who call it home, and a cultural touchstone (a sacred story, a song, etc.) that resonates with varied segments of the community. These ingredients inspire conversations, writing workshops, and open rehearsals, culminating in an original theater piece that is collaboratively created with the community.
Lecture Overview
As part of the CareLab course at The New School, participatory theater pioneer Jon Adam Ross led students in an illuminating discussion on the role theater arts can play in tackling complex community issues.

The session began with an introductory exercise where attendees shared a word or phrase to describe their experience at the New School. Right away this demonstrated what Jon calls the "Chamber of Commerce round"—focusing on the positive while leaving out the full, messy truth of community life. Participatory theater provides a framework to move past initial pleasantries into deeper dialogue and reckoning between a community's multifaceted elements.

Throughout the seminar, Jon reflected on his organization's philosophy of using theater as a way to build trust, spur hard conversations, and transform relationships within troubled communities. Acting for Others employs local teaching artists to lead community workshops and co-create participatory plays drawing from residents' lived experiences. This ground-up creative process gives space for voices often silenced or marginalized when addressing contentious civic issues.

As an example, Jon described a project his group facilitated between police officers and racial justice advocates in Virginia Beach, following the area's history of discrimination in its founding charter. Through theater-building workshops, these groups came together to author a play capturing each of their distinct stories and grievances around regional tensions. Participants later described feeling truly heard by the "other side" often villainized in these conversations.

The seminar emphasized how theater arts provide unique means for communities to collectively process trauma, bridge divides, and strengthen the fabric of civil society. By venturing courageously into participatory art spaces, we have so much to gain from truly seeing, hearing from, and creating alongside those we differ with.
Participatory Theater Seminar with Jon Adam Ross
EMMY Winning PBS Short Documentary: The InHEIRitance Project

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