Through vignettes, poetry, and dialogue; Lisa Wagner-Carollo shares her spiritual journey and personal experiences of living a radical call to the Gospel.

Lisa Wagner-Carollo founded Still Point Theatre Collective in 1993 to produce original professional plays and provide arts outreach programs to marginalized communities. By all accounts, the collective is a success, serving and empowering adults with developmental disabilities, currently and formerly incarcerated women, and senior citizens. The collective celebrated its 25th anniversary in October 2018. Their service to incarcerated women began when the collective developed t

How did you first learn about SPTC? I first learned about Still Point Theatre Collective through my former theatre history professor, Jessie Glover, at Otterbein University in Westerville Ohio. She had seen the internship application posted on facebook and reposted it to her page . My friend pointed it out to me, as it was the perfect opportunity to merge my love for theatre and social justice, as well as community engagement. After I applied for the internship, I met with Ex

I began working with The Still Point Theatre Collective in the fall of 2018. An actor in Chicago, I had been working for years to merge activism and my work in the arts, sometimes with success, but more often with frustration at the fact that not everyone in the arts shared my values of putting usefulness to other human beings and the society at large first. Then I saw a post on an audition website for The True Cost: Stories or Human Trafficking with Still Point. This documen

Still Point operates a theatre apprenticeship inside Grace House Transitional Home on Chicago’s west side. As a part of our Persephone Project, our organization offers part-time employment for women transitioning from the Illinois prison system to write, produce and perform an original play. In our work with returning citizens, we focus on creative writing and improvisation in hopes that it will allow our participants to feel heard, respected, and empowered to share their st

We are truly blessed to have Clearie McCarthy on board as Still Point’s Managing Director. I recently invited her to write a blog reflecting on the value of using theatre as a tool for social justice, which is a big part of our mission at Still point. Please enjoy her personal, powerful, and heartfelt reflections. – Anita Clearie: I grew up in Lansing, MI in a working-class family with both parents and an older sister. My upbringing was filled with love and encouragement and

August 20, 2019 This blog was composed by Still Point Managing Director and program facilitator, Clearie McCarthy: It’s Thursday at 4 o’ clock and my colleague and I are in the chapel at Cook County Jail. This is the time and location of our weekly theatre class with individuals in the THRIVE program; an internal treatment program for incarcerated persons struggling with substance abuse. Our class consists of Voice and Speech work (Patsy Rodenberg technique and Shakespearean

pril 16, 2019 For many years the staff of Still Point thought deeply about how our organization could address human trafficking in a way that might have some real impact. The True Cost: Stories of Human Trafficking is our answer. Our newest professional touring production gives voice to the forgotten ones: the people who are forced into sexual servitude; the children who are exploited as slave labor to provide cheap goods sold in our very own neighborhoods; the women and me

Still Point Interim Managing Director Héctor Álvarez received a Watson Fellowship in 2008 to study community theater companies in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil that served populations who had suffered from trauma. I recently asked Héctor to share in greater detail about the nature of the work that he did as part of this fellowship. Please enjoy his personal reflections and insights in this Still Point blog. – Anita By Héctor Álvarez The Watson Fellowship allowed me to spend a

At Still Point, we have been blessed with a large number of talented and dedica ted people who have been attracted to our organization over the years. While our artists and facilitators often have the spotlight, we’d like to acknowledge someone who play a less visible but no less vital of a role in the organization: Yahaira Landaverry, Still Point’s current Financial Manager. Yahaira has seamlessly stepped in to take over aspects of the daily operations that, frankly, the res