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Producer Begins Senior Fellowship Advancing Social Change

Anderson to help embed the arts into wellbeing movement though unique partnership

Gary Anderson, noted stage director and producer, has been chosen as a Senior Fellow with the Full Frame Initiative (FFI), a social change organization working to ensure everyone has a fair shot at wellbeing. Mr. Anderson’s fellowship will be focused on applying his wealth of experience in theatre to this cause. 

Wellbeing is the set of needs and experiences universally required in combination and balance to weather challenges and has health and hope. Mr. Anderson’s strategy for his work with FFI will be to share new approaches to community engagement among artists and creative organizations. That sharing will be conducted through webinars, panel presentations at national theatre conferences for such organizations as Theatre Communications Group and the Black Theatre Network, and by publishing a report on his findings in American Theatre, Black Mask, or some other nationally-known theatre magazine.

“The arts are a culture-bearer,” he noted recently. “As such, they help us build and maintain social connections while appreciating social capital.” Anderson continued: “The arts provide us with a platform to investigate our humanity, various cultures, and different forms of self-expression. The arts satisfy our need to explore and express the values that we share with one another. Finally, they reflect our experience as a multicultural democracy in ways that both inform and support its continued evolution. I look forward to participating in this important and essential work.”

Mr. Anderson’s fellowship with FFI launched this month, and his contributions to the cause, the movement for wellbeing, are already being felt.

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About Gary Anderson

As Founder and Artistic Director for Plowshares Theatre Company, Gary Anderson has produced, directed, and developed numerous award-winning plays throughout his 33-year career. With a home base in Detroit, he has directed across the nation in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Denver, and Houston. Each of his productions is a unique portrayal of the African American experience. His work usually unearths some lost fact from history or examines a current topic with a fresh perspective.

Anderson is a founding member of the National Advisory Committee of the Black Seed, a first-ever national strategic plan to create an impact for Black theater institutions. A 2016 Kresge Artist Fellow from the Kresge Foundation, he is a noted expert in Black Theatre. His numerous awards include the 2002 Michiganian of the Year Award from The Detroit News; the Alain Locke Cultural Arts Award from The Friends of African and African American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts; and The Lawrence DeVine Award for Outstanding Contribution from The Detroit Free Press. Anderson has served on the board of several local and national theatre organizations.

Anderson holds a master’s degree in Theatre. He is very excited about the possibilities this opportunity will bring.

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