EDUCATOR, THEATREMAKER, SCHOLAR
Julia is an educator and artist whose practice centers around inclusive arts education, theatre for young audiences, drama based pedagogy, and disability theatre. The greater Atlanta native is passionate about exploring how applied theatre practice, disability studies, and justice studies informs her work with young people. She hopes to be a co-conspirator, creator, and collaborator working with others to make places and spaces more inclusive.
A multi-hyphenate artist, Julia has worked in the fields of stage management, directing, dramaturgy, production management, scenic artistry, and design. As a teaching artist, Julia specializes in inclusive arts education, theatre and opera devising, arts integration with young people ages 3-18. She has taught in special education, gifted STEM, ELL, theatre, early childhood, and foreign language classrooms in both private and public schools.
Julia offers a unique voice, perspective, and experience to the growing body of knowledge around equity, access, inclusion, and justice. She strives to let her lived experience as an Autistic learner and educator forward the fields of accessible and theatrical education. Living at the intersection of these two fields of study emboldens her to not only critically examine the world that surrounds disabled people, but to allow her empathetic understanding of the marginalized experience to shape how she contributes to the future of drama in education.
The greater Atlanta native holds a BA in theatre from Georgia College and State University, where she concentrated her work in management, design, and arts integration. As a recent Theatre Education and Applied Theatre MFA graduate of Emerson College, Julia’s scholarship centers around theatre for the very young, disability theatre, interdisciplinary arts-based curriculum development, and youth participatory action research.
Current Involvement
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EYEPlay ADAPT Program Access Consultant with Childsplay Theatre in Tempe, Arizona
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EYEPlay (Early Years Educators at Play) is a creative drama program designed specifically for preschool. I am working with the EYEPlay program professionals as an accessibility consultant, focusing on expanding the program's reach and inclusion of young people of all communicative, cognitive, and developmental, and linguistic backgrounds.
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The Curtains Project Director and Lead Facilitator
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The Curtains Project aims to cultivate creative representations of disabled identity through a series of digital and in person workshops. Together, disabled creatives meet in kinship with one another to encounter techniques in accessible storytelling, art making, and dialogue surrounding intersectional identity to share and construct personal narratives, broaden perspectives, and celebrate our innate “fierce creativity”.
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Recent Involvement:
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Head of Drama Programs at Saint Mary of the Assumption School in Brookline, Massachusetts
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Resident Teaching Artist with the Boston Opera
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Create Your Own Opera Residency Program: Devising Original Opera with Young People in the Boston Area aged 3-18
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Opera Stories Tour: Teaching and Performing in a Opera for Young Audiences Adaptation of Rossini’s La Cenerentola
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Photo by Kay Steele
Musical Theatre Audition Bootcamp for grades 5-8
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Photo by Kay Steele