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How theatre can can lead to constructive political conversations

Can Theatre Bridge the Divide? | Anthony Moseley & Marcus Robinson with Ciaran O’Connor & Alma Cook

Theater has a long history of impacting social change in America.

One example today is the Collaboraction Theatre Company, a Chicago nonprofit exploring theater's role in social change. Through its year-round programming, the group invites its crew and audience members alike to listen and learn from one another, bringing their disagreements and questions in tow.


In this interview with Braver Angels, Collaboraction's artistic director, Anthony Moseley, and former executive director, Marcus Robinson, share their experiences with hosts Ciaran O'Connor and Alma Cook as they discuss how theater can open people up to more constructive political conversations.

The video explores how the troubles of 2020 affected their work, how people of all political viewpoints can be made to feel more welcome in artistic spaces and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLttzaEExPg&t=2214s

To learn more about how theater can be used to open American’s minds to listening and learning from each other visit collaboraction.org .

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How Pop Culture Can Save Democracy: Lessons From Just Do It to Designated Drive

Shoppers stand in line at a Nike outlet store on May 3, 2025 in San Diego, California.

Getty Images, Kevin Carter

How Pop Culture Can Save Democracy: Lessons From Just Do It to Designated Drive

In the late 1980s, the Harvard Alcohol Project did just that. By embedding the term designated driver into prime-time television—from Cheers to L.A. Law—they didn’t just coin a phrase. They changed people’s behavior. The campaign was credited with helping reduce alcohol-related traffic fatalities by nearly 30% over the following decade. President George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, endorsed the movement, amplifying its reach.

They made sober driving socially admirable, not awkward. And they proved that when language meets culture, norms shift.

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La Ventanita: Uniting Conservative Mothers and Liberal Daughters

Steph Martinez and Rachel Ramirez with their mothers after their last performance

Photo Provided

La Ventanita: Uniting Conservative Mothers and Liberal Daughters

When Northwestern theater and creative writing junior Lux Vargas wrote and brought to life La Ventanita, she created a space of rest and home for those who live in the grief of not belonging anywhere, yet still yearn for a sense of belonging together. By closing night, Vargas had mothers and daughters, once splintered by politics, in each other's arms. In a small, sold-out theater in Evanston, the story on stage became a mirror: centering on mothers who fled the country and daughters who left again for college.

Performed four times on May 9 and 10, La Ventanita unfolds in a fictional cafecito window inspired by the walk-up restaurant counters found throughout Miami. “The ventanita breeds conversations and political exchange,” said Vargas.

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A Cruel Season at the Bus Stop

File: ICE agents making arrests

A Cruel Season at the Bus Stop

The poem you’re about to read is not a quiet reflection—it’s a flare shot into the night. It emerges from a moment when the boundaries between surveillance and censorship feel increasingly porous, and when the act of reading itself can be seen as resistance. The poet draws a chilling parallel between masked agents detaining immigrants and the quiet erasure of books from our schools and libraries. Both, he argues, are expressions of unchecked power—one overt, the other insidious.

This work invites us to confront the slippery slope where government overreach meets cultural suppression. It challenges us to ask: What happens when the stories we tell, the knowledge we share, and the communities we protect are deemed threats? And who gets to decide?

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