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)  

For our 2024-2025 season theme we have chosen to focus on community. Seesaw Theatre as a company exists in the realm of many different communities and acts as a joining force, bridging theatre, education and neurodivergent and disability communities. While last year we focused on growth and building our organization, this year we hope to reach out and bring all of our growing into a new year and with new opportunities and experiences. Through our Inclusive Theatre Festival we hope to create opportunities for our community to build and engage in conversations, creating a more inclusive, diverse, and intersectional theatre space. Our fall mainstage, Into the Future, directed by Andrew McCarthy and produced by Ludmilla Stoffel,and spring touring show, Monsters and Myths, directed by Laura Fajardo-Riascos and produced by Amanda Swickle, will create worlds where community is realized, through dreaming about our futures and connecting together our diverse cultures. Under a theme of community, Seesaw hopes to engage in conversations and take action for accessibility and disability justice within the theatre world and beyond.

- Madeleine Bagnall (Executive Director) and Ezra Osburn (Artistic Director)  

We were so elated that we could bring Seesaw back into schools this year with fully in-person programming, using all the tools we have learned from the ups and downs of the past couple of years. We were particularly lucky to have made so many new connections this year. We are looking forward to strengthening and fostering both these connections as well as our continually supportive partnerships. Beyond our season shows, we are so excited to continue and expand our mission of increasing theatrical accessibility both on Northwestern’s campus and beyond. We aim to achieve this by increasing the number of sensory-friendly performances, access to sensory-friendly kits, and making sure accessibility is an integral part of the artistic process. 

One of the core tenets of Seesaw’s mission is our activism. By introducing a new Director of Internal education, we aim to improve our knowledge of current disability justice issues so that our activism as a board can best serve our mission and values, and allow us to take a look at how we can also best make Seesaw as an organization more accessible. As an organization, we are constantly growing and learning from our collaborators. We’re excited to incorporate these ideas into our season programming as we welcome our new directors and producers in the coming weeks. We can’t wait to see what we can offer this year, as well as all the growth this year will bring!

- Matthew McGrory (Executive Director) and Zoe Maroko (Artistic Director)