Since the pandemic, Seesaw—alongside the world—has been slowly reconstructing and readjusting to a new way of life. Through the past few years, we have introduced and engaged with various new initiatives: a hybrid format for our Inclusive Theatre Festival that makes it accessible to attendees outside of our local community; critical engagement and education opportunities for our executive board through the new Director of Internal Education position; and partnerships with organizations within and outside of Northwestern University to widen and deepen the impact of our work. This year, with the framing lens of our season theme ‘Revitalize’, we hope to ask ourselves: what new practices of healing and accessibility can we bring to our art, activism, and community? 

With a restructure of our annual Inclusive Theatre Festival led by Yijin Dong, we hope to provide more consistent and diverse learning opportunities throughout the school year. These multidisciplinary workshops will provide both theoretical and practical opportunities to learn about theatre accessibility in intersections with communication sciences, media, racial justice, and more. Our winter mainstage show (directed by Callan Comeau, produced by Mariah Waters) and our spring touring show (directed by Kiki Keith, produced by Ludmila Stoffel) will explore new ways of engaging directly with our audiences throughout the show development process, allowing us to integrate children’s responses and ideas directly into our shows while providing the community with more workshop events. We are so excited to keep building upon the work of previous years and revitalize Seesaw to continually progress towards higher standards in arts accessibility and disability justice. 

- Aashna Rai (Executive Director) and Laura Fajardo-Riascos (Artistic Director)