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In Your Shoes: Transforming Lived Experience into Performance
March 3 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm Eastern
This six-week class will meet on Tuesdays: March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, and April 7.
In Your Shoes is a six-week devising course offered in partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics and its Art of Care Initiative. Participants learn to transform lived experience into live performance using the Lab’s signature In Your Shoes™ methodology—a performance-based practice centered on deep listening, trust, and empathy.
Through guided conversations, participants share stories and perspectives at their own pace and, with care and consent, perform one another’s words verbatim. This simple but powerful act—speaking someone else’s story as your own— invites new ways of seeing, hearing, and understanding one another. Through collaborative workshops and creative experimentation, you will craft scenes rooted in your own narratives and the narratives of your peers. This class cultivates a supportive space for reflection and artistic expression, welcoming participants of all backgrounds and performance levels. By the end of the class, you’ll participate in a collectively-devised performance piece made entirely from your and your classmates’ stories and experiences.
If you’ve taken any other ASAP theater, storytelling, or improv classes – this may just be your next favorite class!
About the Instructors
Alissa Klusky is a dramaturg, director, and experienced devising artist based in the DC-area. Her work centers around exploring the “why” of creating theater with and for local communities. With an emphasis on joyous discovery, her devising practice has taken her across the US and to India, collaborating with artists from a wide range of artistic backgrounds. She currently facilitates the Theatre Washington Mentorship Program, connecting theater artists of all ages and stages with mentors in the DC area. Outside of theater, she enjoys hanging out with her dog Nugget, reading fantasy and sci-fi books, and a great jam session.
Mekala Sridhar is a DC-based theatre director, playwright, and producer. She holds a BA in Theatre, Literature, and Psychology from Sarah Lawrence College and received additional training from Moscow Art Theatre School and Accademia dell’Arte. In addition to her work with theatres like Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, Mosaic Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, and Baltimore Center Stage, Mekala also conducts literature and music programming with Solas Nua, curates art markets around D.C, and organizes an ongoing open mic series at Eaton House as a resident artist. Building community through theatre is central to her practice, and her artmaking is grounded in creating radically inclusive, collaborative work. Learn more here: www.mekalasridhar.com
Raghad Makhlouf is an accomplished actress, director, and teaching artist, and a two-time Helen Hayes Award nominee for outstanding ensemble. She is the associate director for The Art of Care Initiative at The Lab for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. She holds a BFA from the Higher Institute of Drama in Syria and an MFA in Classical Acting from Shakespeare Theater Company’s Academy at George Washington University. With a dynamic career that spans Syria, Lebanon, and Europe, she has an extensive repertoire of performances on stage and has appeared in more than 400 hours of television drama. Raghad served as a teaching assistant and assistant director at the Higher Institute of Drama in Syria for seven years, and she designed and led acting workshops for teenage Syrian refugees in Lebanon to support their emotional resilience. You can follow her on Instagram at @raghadmakhlouf.
