Change the Story / Change the World

01/10/2025

What if your art could both heal your
community & pay your bills?
If you’re a musician or creative itching to drive real-world change without sacrificing your livelihood, this episode maps a path:

It tells how Music to Life evolved from a songwriting contest into a rigorous accelerator that helps artists design, fund, and measure community projects—so you can make change while making a living.

• Learn how Music To Life helps musicians turn a community cause into a sustainable enterprise
• See real models you can adapt: Vanessa Lively’s Home Street Music built 500+ song circles, 230 sessions, & raised ~$200K serving unhoused neighbors in Austin.
• Learn about proven impact from Benny Esguerra’s mobile studio that measured violence reduction to poet-healer Myles Bullen co-facilitating prison education to process tough emotions and build trust.

Tune in to hear strategies & stories that helped artists step off the stage and into community change—without abandoning the craft that got them there.

If you’re a musician or creative itching to drive real-world change without sacrificing your livelihood, this episode maps a path:

13/11/2024

Put simply, Jeff Mather makes big art with lots of people working together to make a difference. More formally, you could describe him as a teaching, public-art-digital-storytelling alchemist who changes hearts and minds in schools and communities.

His stories are inspiring and a balm for the soul in these trying times. Have a listen at: https://tinyurl.com/JeffMather

16/10/2024

How can creative collaborations between institutions of higher learning and local communities be equitable and accountable?

And, how can change-oriented artists practice effectively and ethically with a foot in each camp?

Billy Yalowitz's work as an academic and theater director and choreographer provides provocative answers to both questions.

It has taken him from t Temple University to the streets of Philadelphia, from Jerusalem's Muslim quarter to a collective farm in rural New York that's provided a cultural, spiritual, and political refuge for multiple generations of his Jewish community

Billy has traveled a creative and often contrary life path that prompted Philadelphia's city paper to name Billy The Best Unclassifiable Theater Artist, and, as you will hear, has produced a rich body of work and stories that we can all learn from.

Explore the intersection of community arts, storytelling, and social change with Bill Cleveland and Billy Yalowitz in this insightful podcast episode.

12/06/2024

💬🎨 Can art reinvigorate democracy? Explore the question and the history of how Animating Democracy has done just that in this week's "Change the Story, Change the World" podcast. Listen today:

Can the arts save democracy? This Change the Story / Change the World Episode explores how creative practices can reinvigorate American democracy by bridging societal divides.

11/04/2024

Can community driven theater help mend our broken and conflicted communities? In this episode Ash Hansen shares the story of what she and her citizen collaborators have learned about how our place stories can help our communities not only heal but find new resilience and common ground. Hear Ash’s story @

Can community theater help mend our broken and conflicted communities? In this episode Ash Hansen shares the story of what she and her many citizen collaborators have learned about how our place stories can help our communities not only heal but find new resilience and common ground.

01/11/2023

In this episode you attend a play called Angry Black Woman and Well-Intentioned White Girl, a workshop called the Art of Mothering, take a rest in the Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired Chair, and visit a creative sanctuary for mothers called Yo Mama's House. Check it out @ https://change-the-story-chan.captivate.fm/episode/amoke-kubat-yo-mama-is-in-the-house
Yo Mama's House.

19/07/2023

It's one thing to have good intentions. It's another entirely to make demonstrable change and thrive doing it. Real progress demands the later. Alice Lovelace knows this. Hear her story ://change-the-story-chan.captivate.fm/episode/alice-lovelace-reprise-how-do-artists-thrive-as-creative-change-agents

07/06/2023

Over 20 years of change making theater, making real change. Hear the story @ https://change-the-story-chan.captivate.fm/episode/breaking-ice-is-changing-dei-one-performance-at-a-time

25/05/2023

“How do you build a society around ideas of care? We're pretty good at doing care to other people … We're not so good at being person that needs help… So, how do we create opportunity for people to be vulnerable. And is that not a role of theater and performance and art? I kind of think it is.” DOMINIC CAMPBELL – Hear More @ https://change-the-story-chan.captivate.fm/episode/ep-72-dominic-campbell-the-arts-can-help-us-create-a-culture-of-care

10/05/2023

Something is happening at the crossroads of art and neuroscience that is changing our understanding of both brain health and human creativity. This episode’s guest, Dominic Campbell, has been joining with scientists, physicians, social workers, gerontologists, and fellow artists exploring this fast emerging frontier. Hear Part 1 of his story @
https://change-the-story-chan.captivate.fm/episode/why-is-creative-aging-the-cutting-edge-of-community-arts

, # GBHI #

29/03/2023

Art in a Democracy: Songs, Stories, Dancing & Plays
Folks together having fun and making change
In the holler, on the Pueblo, in the Barrio, on the Stage,
Art as a Democracy, 50 years ago, and today
Have a listen @ https://tinyurl.com/AiAD1-2