From the page to the stage: Lived Through This, the critically praised book by Anne K. Ream, has been adapted for the theatre. Join us for a special staged reading in Chicago on June 9th.

Part personal history of activist and writer Anne K. Ream’s experience rebuilding her life in the wake of sexual violence, part memoir of a multi-country journey spent listening to survivors, Lived Through This has been adapted for the stage by Anne K. Ream, award-winning playwright Marilyn Campbell-Lowe, and award-winning new talent Caity-Shea Violette. Directed by 16th Street Theater’s Ann Filmer, the theatrical adaptation of Lived Through This features an ensemble of actors and live musical performances inspired by the rock and soul playlist that helped the book’s author heal. This is a play about the lives we live after saying #MeToo, and the gorgeous, funny, outspoken, all-too human women and men who are living them.

Lived Through This features heart-stopping, beautifully rendered stories of survivors powerfully illustrating the notion that when we tell our stories, we change the story,” says Eve Ensler (author of The Vagina Monologues). This special performance during Printers Row Lit Fest—one of North America’s preeminent book fairs—is presented by Women’s Media Group and The Voices and Faces Project in partnership with our community allies.  A talkback with the book’s author will follow the program.

 

LIVED THROUGH THIS:
A staged reading of the new play

Sunday, June 9th, 3:00 pm
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
at the Harold Washington Public Library
400 S. State St.,
Chicago, IL 60605

 

Testimony and Transformation: Our newest Voices and Faces Project writing program receives a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council.

Testimony and Transformation: Telling a New Story About Mass Incarceration— a collaboration of The Voices and Faces ProjectBrothers Standing Together, and The Goldin Institute— is made possible thanks to an Envisioning Justice Community Grant from Illinois Humanities. The program will bring together 20 previously incarcerated Chicago men and boys seeking to use their stories to change the public understanding of the ways that violence in its many forms impacts victims, families, and communities. During an immersive two-day reading and writing focused workshop, participants will reflect on the ways that “toxic masculinity” shapes social assumptions about men and women, while thinking in new ways about the intersectionality of the social injustices they have lived or witnessed: poverty, homelessness, police brutality, interpersonal and gender-based violence, and mass incarceration. We are grateful to the Illinois Humanities Council for its support of our newest Voices and Faces Project program, and indebted to the team that conceived it: Jimmie Briggs, Anne K. Ream, Brother Raymond Richard, and R. Clifton Spargo.

Students at Northwestern University take part in Our Stories Are Our Power, a Voices and Faces Project advocacy training.

Be the change: Take part in a Voices and Faces Project advocacy training in 2019.

Immersive, interactive, and audience-relevant, our Voices and Faces Project advocacy trainings are customized in partnership with local host organizations, evaluated on an ongoing basis, and continually updated to best address current events and contemporary advocacy challenges. Since the inception of our advocacy training program in 2006, Voices and Faces Project trainers and facilitators have traveled to 48 US states and 4 continents, creating social change every step of the way.

To bring an advocacy training or Voices and Faces speaker to your community in 2019, email Katie@voicesandfaces.org.

Participant Joua Yang during our writing workshop.

If you have a story to tell, take part in “The Stories We Tell.”

When The Voices and Faces Project launched “The Stories We Tell,” North America’s first two-day testimonial writing program for those who have lived through or witnessed gender-based violence, we did so with a simple belief: that the stories of those who have lived through or witnessed violence can challenge and change the world.  During a moment in our national life when politicians and pundits too often fail to confront the root causes of gender-based violence, injustice, and inequality, our “Stories We Tell” writers are using their testimonies to change minds and hearts. There is nothing beautiful about injustice, but there is something deeply beautiful about the women and girls who are speaking out about it. Their testimonies make us pause, feel, and think. Our hope is that the writing being created during “The Stories We Tell” will also compel readers to act.

Support The Voices and Faces Project’s Stories We Tell Scholarship Fund.

We’ve launched a drive to support our 2019 Stories We Tell Scholarship Fund. Every $650 raised provides a full, two-day scholarship to a workshop applicant ready to take part in our groundbreaking writing program. Thanks, in advance, for giving the gift of change.