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Borrowed Wisdom with Robert Barry Fleming

Borrowed Wisdom with Robert Barry Fleming

By Actors Theatre of Louisville

Theatre in the 21st-century is an inherently interdisciplinary craft and Robert Barry Fleming, Executive Artistic Director at Actors Theatre of Louisville, finds inspiration everywhere. Each week, Robert talks with an unrivaled expert, full of ideas, strategies and challenges around their work, then investigates that which is consonant and connected to how they navigate their discipline and their world no matter what the field. It’s a podcast about that which we can learn from one another when such learning is approached with a spirit of openness.
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Introducing Borrowed Wisdom

Borrowed Wisdom with Robert Barry FlemingJun 12, 2020

00:00
00:37
Cultural Relevance, Brand Resonance ft. Stacey Wade & Dr. Dawn Wade (Nimbus)
Jan 25, 202136:58
Truth-telling, Forgiveness, and “Unsolvable” Problems, ft. Chandra Irvin (Center for Peace and Spiritual Renewal at Spalding University)

Truth-telling, Forgiveness, and “Unsolvable” Problems, ft. Chandra Irvin (Center for Peace and Spiritual Renewal at Spalding University)

Chandra is the Executive Director for the Center for Peace and Spiritual Renewal at Spalding University where she provides institutional vision and strategies for personal spiritual renewal, inward liberation, and social transformation within and beyond the Spalding community.

In 1994 she established Irvin, Goforth & Irvin, LLC, a consulting firm which has helped individuals and Fortune 100 organizations throughout the U.S. and internationally to: clarify ambiguities in relationships; overcome chronic difficulties; resolve conflicts; and build meaningful relations across diverse groups. Following the shooting of 9 worshipers in Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston, SC, she served as consultant, designer and facilitator to the city’s acclaimed “Illumination Project,” a year-long city-wide process to strengthen community/police relations; and she is presently engaged in a similar endeavor in Louisville called, “The Synergy Project.”

Chandra has authored and contributed to several books and articles on peace, human relations, and polarity thinking including, “Finding Peace in Life, Work, and Love, Listening to the Voice Within.” She describes her “sacred innate identity” as Peace. Employing her experience as a licensed minister, certified strengths and life coach (ICF), facilitator, and master consultant in polarity thinking, she journeys with individuals and organizations through uncertainties and disruptions to establish greater peace, purpose and wholeness in their lives.

Chandra and her husband Nat have three adult children: Nate, Jovian (George), and Roman; and they look forward to their first grandchild in January.


📚 References:

Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman (1949)

Louisville Synergy Project

The Illumination Project - Charleston

Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems by Barry Johnson (1992)

More Beautiful Than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us by Steve Leder (2017)


Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3

Produced by Elizabeth Greenfield

Edited by Paul Doyle

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Nov 27, 202036:52
"Rednecks for Black Lives", ft Beth Howard (Southern Crossroads)

"Rednecks for Black Lives", ft Beth Howard (Southern Crossroads)

Beth Howard is the Organizing Director of Southern Crossroads. She is from a working-class family in Eastern Kentucky. She has over 12 years of experience in grassroots community organizing and leadership development. Beth began her organizing career as Lead Organizer at Fighting Against Injustice Towards Harmony in Daytona Beach, FL where the organization won campaigns to secure a substance-abuse treatment program and mental-health services for incarcerated people in the county jail. After five years, Beth moved back to her home state of Kentucky and worked for nearly seven years as a chapter organizer and later as Deputy Organizing Director of Leadership Development for Kentuckians For The Commonwealth. At KFTC, she worked on winning campaigns to raise the minimum wage in Fayette County and to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 Kentuckians with felonies in their past. She also created an organizing apprentice program and a community organizing 101 intensive training program for KFTC”s grassroots members. In 2019, she graduated from Catalyst Project’s Anne Braden program, a transformational anti-racist organizer training for white social-justice activists and served as the lead staff support for KFTC’s organizational racial justice assessment and visioning process. She is deeply committed to liberatory organizing strategies to build a multiracial poor-working class people’s movement in the American South. She lives in Lexington, KY with her partner Andrew, their faithful dog Sandy, and their defiant cat Tadpole.


📚 References:

Southern Crossroads

An Appalachian Reawakening: West Virginia and the Perils of the New Machine Age, 1945-1972 by Jerry Thomas (2010)

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X Kendi (2017)

Owsley County, Kentucky, and the Perpetuation of Poverty by John R. Burch Jr. (2007)

Combahee River Collective

adrienne maree brown


Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3


Produced by Elizabeth Greenfield

Edited by Paul Doyle

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Nov 03, 202037:47
"Recognition and reconciliation," ft Kellie Watson

"Recognition and reconciliation," ft Kellie Watson

Robert and Kellie dive into the local impact of the Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron's announcement of the grand jury decision in the murder of Breonna Taylor. Kellie shares her personal and professional perspectives on civil service, violence, and community activism.

Kellie R. Watson was the first Chief Equity Officer for Louisville Metro Government, providing strategic, visionary planning and oversight to advance racial equity in Louisville Metro Government and she oversees the Department of Human Resources and the Human Relations Commission. Prior to this, she was the General Counsel/Legislative Liaison to Mayor Fischer. She was also the Director of the Human Resources Department/Labor Relations within the Fischer administration. Kellie has served as the Director for Office of Human Resource Management/Acting Director of the Office of Civil Rights and Small Business for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Kellie’s early years in City of Louisville, were as the Director of the Louisville Metro Human Relations Commission for several years, as the Director of the Office of Affirmative Action. Kellie is a member of the Kentucky and Louisville Bar Associations; Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. serving as the Executive Board Chair of Beta Alpha Xi Zeta Chapter; Legislative Liaison for Derby City Chapter of Jack and Jill Inc.

📚 References:

“The 1619 Project”

The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter (2010)

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (2020)


Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3

Produced by Elizabeth Greenfield

Audio Engineer and Editor: Paul Doyle

Cover art by Mary Kate Grimes

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Oct 14, 202039:46
Disruption, Resistance, and Shakespeare, ft Eric Ting (Cal Shakes)

Disruption, Resistance, and Shakespeare, ft Eric Ting (Cal Shakes)

Robert and Eric share their perspectives on the narratives surrounding BIPOC leadership, the roles of allies versus accomplices, and disrupting dominant culture legacies and systems in non-profit arts organizations.

Mr. Ting is an Obie Award-winning director, Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater. He previously served as Long Wharf Theatre Associate Artistic Director. Recent credits include the world premiere of Sam Hunter’s Lewiston (Long Wharf Theatre), To Kill a Mockingbird (Cincinnati Playhouse), The World of Extreme Happiness (Manhattan Theatre Club / Goodman), Appropriate (Mark Taper Forum), Kimber Lee’s Brownsville Song (LWT / Philadelphia Theatre Co), A Great Wilderness (Williamstown), Nora Chipaumire’s Miriam (BAM Next Wave), Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation… (world premiere, Soho Rep / Victory Gardens) and Rising Son (world premiere, Singapore Rep). Ting is a founding member of the artists’ collective INTELLIGENT BEASTS. Upcoming: Othello (Cal Shakes), Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower with Toshi Reagon (National Tour) and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon (Berkeley Rep). He is a recipient of a TCG New Generations fellowship, a Jerome & Roslyn Milstein Meyer Career Development Prize, a NEFA National Theatre Project grant, and (with Meiyin Wang) a MAP Fund Award. Additionally, he has served on grant panels including the Doris Duke Charitable Trust, Jerome and McKnight Foundations, NEA, TCG, PONY, Creative Work Fund and Alpert Awards.

📚 References:

California Shakespeare Theater: https://calshakes.org/

The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler (1980)

The People’s Institute for Survival & Beyond: https://www.pisab.org/

Macbeth, 1969, directed & adapted by Eric Ting (Long Wharf Theatre, 2012):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDYVg0NZcz0

Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare by Geoffrey Bullough (1975)


Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3

Produced by Elizabeth Greenfield

Edited by Paul Doyle

Cover art by Mary Kate Grimes

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Sep 22, 202047:09
Breaking the Silence, ft Anthony Edwards (1in6)
Aug 26, 202041:09
How Community-Oriented Research Can Dismantle Systems and Dispel the Myth of Data Neutrality, ft Jessica Bellamy & Josh Poe (Root Cause Research Center)

How Community-Oriented Research Can Dismantle Systems and Dispel the Myth of Data Neutrality, ft Jessica Bellamy & Josh Poe (Root Cause Research Center)

Co-Principal Investigators Jessica Bellamy and Josh Poe share their work connecting data justice, housing justice, and abolition and discuss their practice of accountability and accompaniment, and subversive intellectualism in the South.

Jessica Bellamy is an award-winning international speaker, workshop facilitator, motion infographic designer, and research analyst. She and her colleague Josh Poe are the founders of the Root Cause Research Center which is a grassroots-led institution that collects data, creates data visuals, and trains impacted community members in research and data storytelling.

Jessica's research career began at the University of Louisville's Neurodevelopmental Science Lab, where she worked for nearly five years. She later used her training as a research analyst, as well as her training in community organizing and graphic design to start GRIDS: The Grassroots Information Design Studio, which was a social enterprise that combined all three skill sets to benefit social initiatives.

Josh Poe is the co-founder and Co-Principal Investigator at the Root Cause Research Center here in Louisville. He is an urban planner, community organizer, and geographer with over 20 years of scholarship, activism and practical experience in planning, urban land policy and housing issues in his home state of Kentucky and Seattle, Washington, including with Black Lives Matter Louisville.

Make your voice heard about the Smoketown development: https://www.cflouisville.org/resources/smoketown-feedback/

📚 Resources:

Root Cause Research Center: https://www.rootcauseresearch.org/

“Weaponizing Truth: A Spirited Analysis of Movement Science & Design” by Jessica Bellamy:  https://link.medium.com/81jQmwxv28

GRIDS: The Grassroots Information Design Studio: https://www.gridsconnect.me/

Our Data Bodies: https://www.odbproject.org/

Stop LAPD Spying Coalition: https://stoplapdspying.org/

Invest/Divest Louisville: https://www.investdivest.org/

#CancelRent:  https://www.rootcauseresearch.org/cancelrent

“Russell: What is the Right to Remain? Part 1: https://www.rootcauseresearch.org/post/russell-what-is-the-right-to-remain-part-1

Tressie McMillan Cottom, "Race in the U.S.": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwYjmEuvldg


Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3

Produced by Elizabeth Greenfield

Edited by Paul Doyle

Cover art by Mary Kate Grimes

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Aug 18, 202041:26
Fighting for Justice in Louisville: legacy, evolution, and the next generation, ft Lisa Gunterman (LGBT Center at University of Louisville)

Fighting for Justice in Louisville: legacy, evolution, and the next generation, ft Lisa Gunterman (LGBT Center at University of Louisville)

Aug 11, 202037:19
Investing in Mental Health and Combating Trauma, ft Nancy Brooks (NAMI Louisville) and Donna Pollard (Survivors' Corner)

Investing in Mental Health and Combating Trauma, ft Nancy Brooks (NAMI Louisville) and Donna Pollard (Survivors' Corner)

Robert chats with two local mental health and advocacy experts - Nancy Brooks and Donna Pollard - to explore combating isolation, fear, anxiety in quarantine, intergenerational trauma, and cultural obstacles to mental health resources and healing.

Content warning: discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation, child abuse, addiction, police brutality, domestic violence, and sexual assault.

Nancy Brooks has been the executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Louisville since 2017. A Louisville native, she’s passionate about advocacy at the local and state level for the needs of those being served by NAMI. Nancy is an experienced non-profit director with a history in community development, education, and the arts.

Donna Pollard dares to believe in a world where young girls can be free from abuse and exploitation. A native of Kentucky -- a state burdened with thousands of cases of abuse and a history of child marriage -- she is leading the charge for change. Donna successfully advocated for improved legislation in her home state and many others that put an end to child marriage through parental consent and continues to advocate for this protective change both nationally and internationally. She most recently traveled to Finland as the keynote speaker for the Zonta International Centennial Conference, shedding light on the devastating implications of child marriage and critically needed global reform. As a survivor herself, Donna realizes the need for healing, support, and encouragement for past victims. She founded Survivors’ Corner, a nonprofit that empowers those ready to share their survival experiences with the goal of breaking abusive cycles and challenging policies and laws that perpetuate crimes against women and children. Her journey through the trauma of child marriage and exploitation can be accessed through the A&E Documentary, "I Was a Child Bride," interviews and articles in Good Housekeeping, Glamour, NPR, Stateline, Fox News, US News and World Report, PBS, CBS News, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, the Lexington Herald-Leader, and the Louisville Courier-Journal, among many other national and international outlets, such as The Guardian and Daily Mail. She is a frequent panelist, speaker, and trainer, and has given numerous keynote speeches as well as testimony before legislative committees. Donna is a mother of two girls, a business professional, and an avid advocate for child welfare.

📚 Resources:

NAMI Louisville: https://namilouisville.org/

Survivors Corner: https://survivorscorner.org/


Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3

Produced by Kathryn de la Rosa and Elizabeth Greenfield

Edited by Paul Doyle

Cover art by Mary Kate Grimes

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Aug 06, 202001:09:04
Witnessing and Reflecting That Which Can’t Be Expressed, ft Nataki Garrett

Witnessing and Reflecting That Which Can’t Be Expressed, ft Nataki Garrett

Robert and Nataki share their experiences directing stories of enslavement, transitioning from performance to leadership, and being an artist during the paradigm shift we’re experiencing today.

Nataki Garrett is Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s sixth artistic director. As the former associate artistic director of CalArts Center for New Performance, Garrett has been hailed as a champion of new work as well as an experienced, savvy arts administrator. 2019 was Garrett’s first season at OSF, where she directed How to Catch Creation. At CalArts, Garrett oversaw all operations of conservatory training and produced mainstage, black box, developmental projects, plays, co-productions and touring productions. She is currently on the nominating committee for The Kilroys, and she recently served on the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust Distinguished Playwright Award nominating committee and the Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship panel.

📚 References:

Brandon Jacob-Jenkins’s “An Octoroon” https://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=5049

Read more about Dominique Morisseau’s “Confederates” https://www.blackburnprize.org/home/finalists-2020/dominique-morisseau/

Read more about Katori Hall’s “Pussy Valley” https://www.playbill.com/article/katori-hall-takes-on-strip-clubs-power-sex-and-the-south-in-her-explosive-new-series-p-valley

Read Alesha Harris’s “Is God Is” http://www.3holepress.org/is-god-is


Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3

Produced by Elizabeth Greenfield

Audio Engineer: Paul Doyle

Cover art by Mary Kate Grimes

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Jul 28, 202059:27
Cultural Recovery and Imagining the Future, ft Christen Boone (Fund for the Arts)
Jul 21, 202038:01
“Why church? Why theatre?,” ft Rev. Dr. Shannon Craigo-Snell
Jul 14, 202045:54
COVID-19 and Systemic Racism: Dual Public Health Crises, ft Dr. Monalisa Tailor

COVID-19 and Systemic Racism: Dual Public Health Crises, ft Dr. Monalisa Tailor

Jul 07, 202001:04:13
Feeding Louisville and Empowering the Next Generation, ft Chef Nikkia Rhodes (McAtee Community Kitchen)

Feeding Louisville and Empowering the Next Generation, ft Chef Nikkia Rhodes (McAtee Community Kitchen)

Robert talks to Chef Nikkia Rhodes about serving Louisville, leadership, and empowering the next generation in and out of the kitchen.


📚 References:

McAtee Community Kitchen: https://leeinitiative.org/mcatee-community-kitchen/

Kentucky to the World “The Future of Food is Female” : https://www.kentuckytotheworld.org/upcoming-events/the-future-of-food-is-female

Iroquois High School Culinary Academy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqd0VEgK8zo


Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3

Produced by Elizabeth Greenfield

Edited by Lindsay Burdsall and Paul Doyle

Cover art by Mary Kate Grimes

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Jun 30, 202033:39
Radical Hospitality, Extravagant Welcome, and Transforming Communities, ft Dr. David Anderson Hooker
Jun 23, 202041:13
Abolition, Redlining, and Louisville, ft Joshua Poe (Root Cause Research Center)

Abolition, Redlining, and Louisville, ft Joshua Poe (Root Cause Research Center)

Joshua Poe, co-founder of the Root Cause Research Center in Louisville, joins Robert to discuss racial capitalism, redlining, and the Breonna Taylor protests. Recorded June 4, 2020.

Root Cause Research Center: https://www.rootcauseresearch.org/

📚 References:

Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865-1930 by George C. Wright

Development Arrested: The Blues and Plantation Power in the Mississippi Delta by Clyde Woods

Faces at the Bottom of the Well by Derrick Bell

Actors Theatre of Louisville: https://actorstheatre.org

https://www.facebook.com/ActorsTheatreofLouisville

📷 Instagram: @actorstheatre, @robertbarryfleming

🐦 Twitter: @atlouisville, @flemingrobertb3

Produced by Kathryn de la Rosa and Elizabeth Greenfield

Edited by Lindsay Burdsall

Cover art by Mary Kate Grimes

Original music by Omega Latham III

Opening song written & performed by Erica Denise

Jun 16, 202051:37
Introducing Borrowed Wisdom

Introducing Borrowed Wisdom

A new podcast from Actors Theatre of Louisville, hosted by Executive Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming. Season one coming soon!

Jun 12, 202000:37