An Interview with Angelisa Gillyard – Director of Outreach and Engagement

Marketing and Communications Apprentice, Eli Bradley sits down with Director of Outreach and Engagement, Angelisa Gillyard in this short, insightful interview.

Eli:  Hello, Angelisa. Thank you so much for making the time to sit down with me. Can you tell me what drew you to Mosaic as an organization?

Angelisa:  I was drawn to the fact that they were doing stories by and about people of color and expanding the narrative of whose voices get to tell the story. I knew about the Voices from a Changing Middle East festival, and have been to two shows as part of the Festival.  I found the variety of stories being told interesting.

Eli:  Would you mind giving the audience a brief overview of what you do for Mosaic?  From the outside, people see a large organization with all these turning gears we don't understand. So, what is your gear?  How do you interface with the Mosaic the public sees and what would crash and burn if you were to get raptured one day.

Angelisa:  Well, I hope nothing crashes and burns!  As Director of Education and Outreach, I manage how we enrich the audience’s theatrical experience beyond the artistic programming. How do we inform and engage them in conversation?  And how do we make sure those conversations represent the intersectionality that is our community?  So, that includes public programming activities like Creative Conversations and Peace Cafes. On the education side, we try to empower and engage young people and adults to tell their own stories. One of the most immediate ways we do this is through our playwriting workshops and career workshops for high school students. Performance is typically the first thing that people think about when considering a career in the theater, so helping students imagine, “Hey, maybe I could be a set designer, or a costume designer, or maybe I could be a grant writer or do marketing in a theater,” opens up new possibilities and pathways for them. 

Eli:  Have there been any unexpected delights or surprises, as you've done this work and education outreach? Are there certain ways in which communities responded that you hadn't expected?

Angelisa:  The H Street creative conversation received a fantastic response and people seemed to be really interested in learning about the history of the H Street corridor from the people that live there. We hope to do more work centered around the stories and lives of the H Street community. 

Eli:  You do education.  You do outreach. You're a dancer and choreographer and you're a director. Are there any areas of artistic endeavors or administrative leadership that you are interested in exploring?

Angelisa:  Yes.  Playwriting. I took an adaptation class in grad school where we could choose any source material to adapt into a play and I chose the Book of Ruth from the Bible. That experience has sparked several other ideas for plays and I just need to make time to consistently work on developing them.

Eli:  That's amazing. I would love to read that one.

Eli:  In closing, I know you were about to direct The Niceties at Mosaic, which has been postponed due to the Covid related closure of the Atlas and Mosaic. Apart from that play, what is the next piece you'd like to direct?   

Angelisa:  That is a good question. One that I would love to direct is Saturday Night, Sunday Morning by Katori Hall. I'm not a huge fan of Samuel Beckett’s full length plays, but I like a lot of his short plays that are movement based, (this where my choreography brain kicks in), so I would love to direct some of those, even as a film version.  Spunk by George C. Wolfe is another play I’d love to direct. 

Eli:  Thank you, Angelisa, this was lovely.

Angelisa:  Thank you, Eli!