Arlene Goldbard

I took part in a “think-tank” at the Center on Age and Community, a structured brainstorm involving artists and people who work with elders and their families in long-term care facilities, advocacy organizations and other roles and settings. Our brief was to look at “transforming activities in long-term care,” “activities” being all the things that [...]

I have some advice for Rocco Landesman, the newly appointed Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, but first I have to convince myself it is worth offering.
In case he reads this, I’ll summarize my advice up front: Rocco Landesman, the intelligence, risk-taking and independence for which you are admired on Broadway will be [...]

I’m on the road with time for just a quick note to tell you that on May 12th, more than sixty activist artists, community artists, creative organizers and uncategorizable fellow travelers took part in a White House briefing I helped to organize. Actually, it was two meetings in one: I’d proposed a meeting of community [...]

I’ve been waiting a week for the obituary on Augusto Boal that appeared in Saturday’s New York Times. He passed away last Saturday at the age of 78.
Boal was a giant figure and a defining influence on the practice of art that is simultaneously the practice of politics (and though some Boal disciples might disagree [...]

It’s been an astoundingly busy time: I’ve inhaled a giant lungful of the air of possibility concerning cultural recovery, exhaling endless pro bono projects, days speeding by like spring petals on the wind. (Nagging thoughts of livelihood float like rain clouds overhead, but never mind for now.)
Busy on the inside too. Something persuaded me that [...]