I have become increasingly suspicious of the phrase unprecedented times. During my lifetime, I’ve watched Americans practice hiding beneath school desks in preparation for nuclear war. I’ve watched a president resign in disgrace. I’ve watched the Berlin Wall fall, the internet transform daily life, and two airplanes change the way an entire nation thought about safety.…
No one rehearses a fire drill because they hope for a fire. No orchestra rehearses because the concert has already happened. A rehearsal is where habits form before the moment they are needed. We rehearse not because we know what will happen, but because we want to become the kind of people who can respond well…
For months, I’ve been asking artists to imagine helping strengthen democracy. I’ve come to think I was asking the wrong question. The question wasn’t how artists could become more civically engaged. It was this: What have artists been practicing all along that healthy democracies cannot function without? That realization changed the way I think about Res…
Writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, designers, and other culture-makers spend their lives imagining new possibilities. What happens when they turn that creative power toward civic life? The Future Won’t Imagine Itself We live at a time when corruption, greed, control, prejudice, boorishness, and denial are idealized. Often weaponized. Most of us recognize this. Many of us…
The curiosity of creativity keeps leaving things at my doorstep and saying, “Here, trip over that.” But First, How I Got Here My training was in theatre. Acting, specifically. From childhood into my 30s I was a good theatre workhorse who never broke through due to my own fear. But I did have my moments.…
There is no point in waiting for U.S. leaders to do so. Union • Unión • L’union • 联盟 • Unyon This week, the Presidents of the European Parliament, Council, and Commission issued a shared commitment to protect, promote, and invest in culture. “Europe’s story is told through its art, culture and creativity,” said Roberta…
Whether you paint, write, design, or perform, we can out-imagine and outmaneuver political malevolence. Our nation’s creators were preemptive In 1787, 55 delegates sat in a sweltering Philadelphia room and drafted the United States Constitution. They didn’t just tweak an existing system; they designed a representative framework from scratch, balancing democratic participation with structural checks…
There is a conversation that has been waiting to happen. Not between politicians and constituents. Not between policy experts and the public. Between a writer and a trumpeter. Between a filmmaker and a choreographer. Between a painter and a game designer. Between artists who have spent their lives inside the most demanding truth-telling work democracy…
Like any practice — whether music, dance, surgery, or prayer — democracy requires repetition, discipline, failure, adjustment, and the willingness to try again. Which raises a question: What role do the arts play in that rehearsal? Not the arts as decoration or entertainment, though beauty and joy matter. Not even the arts only as protest, though…
Most of the rules that shape daily life are not made in Washington. They come from state legislatures, administrative agencies, and local councils. Most of the people making those rules do not have a writer in the room. That is not accidental. It is a failure of understanding. Theirs, and sometimes ours. Here is what…