Community Partnerships and Projects
TOPLAB partners with organizations that struggle against social injustice and community problems, helping them to incorporate theater into their organizing efforts. TOPLAB provides training and support of community organizers in Theater of the Oppressed techniques and collaborations on theater-based community building projects. TOPLAB facilitators work with community organizers to design theater-based projects in line with the organization's goals. Organizers facilitate alongside TOPLAB facilitators, receiving training, practice and evaluation in Theater of the Oppressed techniques.
Ongoing Community Partnerships and Projects
Make the Road New York uses popular education and political organizing to struggle for the rights of immigrants, LGBT people, workers, parents, students and tenants in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, NY. TOPLAB helped develop leadership training workshops for staff and members incorporating Theater of the Oppressed techniques into political education and organizing strategies. TOPLAB also helped to develop Teatro Rodante de Inmigrantes, a traveling theater company working in Spanish, focused on immigrants' rights.
Falconworks Artists Group (falconworks.com). TOPLAB assists Falconworks, a theater organization located in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in the development of the Red Hook Theater Project, a group of neighbors working to improve conditions for students, artists, and public housing residents in Red Hook.
CEUS–Centro Comunitario (http://www.ceusnj.org) is a New Jersey based immigrants' rights center for Latino immigrants. They have been active for over 15 years offering educational programs, cultural events, and advocacy and organizing support. TOPLAB collaborated with the women's program to lead a series of Image Theater workshops to discuss immigrant women's issues.
JusticeWorks Community, recently de-funded, worked with teens and adults to raise awareness about incarceration issues in the Bronx and elsewhere in New York state. TOPLAB assisted JWC in facilitating Theater of the Oppressed with their teen group, Fighters for Justice.