Theatre Director, Scholar, Playwright and
Community Engagement Specialist
Tulsa '21: Black Wall Street Promo
From 2016-18, as part of Tara's dissertation work, she returned to her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma where she grew up never hearing about the Tulsa Race Massacre and Black Wall Street. Using story circles to engage with community members in North Tulsa who have long been affected by this buried history, she partnered with the Greenwood Cultural Center to hear stories and teach creative drama to children. She then created an original play, Tulsa '21: Black Wall Street which she directed with community members and produced for its 2018 premiere. It will be produced with World Stage Theatre Company for the 2021 centennial in Tulsa.
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Shatter the Silence
From 2016-2021, Tara Brooke Watkins co-led the ministry Shatter the Silence with Rev. Dr. Pastor Gloria White-Hammond at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, MA. Shatter the Silence seeks to provide healing for victims of sexual violence through healing story circles and drama therapy techniques. It also offers training for those wanting to help survivors of sexual violence. Tara developed a short play in community with the inaugural group of women which played at sexual victimization awareness church services in Boston.
The Bible Women's Project
This project began in 2014 when Tara ran weekly story circles with young Protestant women to hear about their experiences growing up in church and how those experiences affected their outlook on themselves as women. The final product became a devised piece using the women's true stories juxtaposed with women's stories from the Bible. Themes include empowerment, abuse, sexual harassment, incest, grief, and rule-breaking. While the topics are difficult, the show has been lauded as an emotional rollercoaster taking people from tears to intense laughter in a matter of minutes. The Bible Women's Project was an official selection of the New York International Fringe Festival in 2016, toured internationally until Covid, and recently won three national awards at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival with the cast from Salve Regina University.
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The Father Bill's Play
on Quincy Access Television
In 2018-19, Tara worked with the students in the Theatre for Social Justice program at Eastern Nazarene College to run story circles and applied theatre techniques at Father Bill's Place, a homeless shelter in Quincy, MA. They heard from guests and staff at Father Bill's all about the experience of homelessness in Massachusetts. Through the Devising class in the TFSJ curriculum, Tara led students in creating the original play, The Father Bill's Play, which premiered in 2020.
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