Speaking
Mary Offers In-Person and Virtual Keynotes and Webinars!
Mary’s interactive keynote speeches and break-out sessions are both serious and joyful in a way that allows everyone to be involved. Her bespoke offerings will focus on your company’s specific needs, teaching you how to apply tools from applied theatre to confront oppression within ourselves, our relationships, our workplaces, and our societies and cultures. Mary's positive and judgment-free approach provides a range of emotions for participants to express vulnerability through storytelling and play, one laugh at a time.
Topics Include:
Bias and Compassionate Listening
How can we become more focused as a listener? When can we use improv to interrupt the bias we carry with us? Mary will teach you how to become a more compassionate listener and interrupt your bias using applied improvisation.
Intersectionality and Identity
How do your personal and social identities impact your relationships with others and the ways that you navigate through the world? Through interactive exercises, Mary will teach you how your identities interconnect and impact your world view.
humility and fragility
What role does humility play in hiring, communication, and collaboration? How can we influence the stories we tell ourselves about others to disrupt our own fragility? Mary will address the role oppression plays in influencing our fragility when making decisions.
Conference Presentations:“Playing with Identity to Inform Your Writing as a Playwright,” SCRiB Lab Playwriting Conference, Seattle, WA, June 2025
“Stand-up Comedy as an Applied Theatre Practice: One Black Woman’s Authoethnographical Perspective,” Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH), Denver, CO, April 2024
“Communication Through Multicultural Perspectives,” Graphisoft North America, Virtual, March 2023
Mid-America Theatre Conference Fall Symposium: Decolonizing Theatre, “Applied Theatre's Role in Race Equity and DEI,” November 2022
“Masters of My Life: Exploring Power through Humor and Storytelling,” Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH), Orlando, FL March 2022
“Applying Improv to Uncover Our Biases,” Applied Improvisation Network, October 2021
“Anti-Racism and Allyship in Academia Workshop” Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Conference, Virtual, August 2021
“The DEI Lifecycle: Creating Sustainable Change Within Organizations,” Diversity Forum, University of Pittsburgh, Virtual, July 2021
“How to Heal Internalised Oppression,” Different Women, Virtual, April 2021
“Using Humor to Address Challenges in a Changing World,” Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH), Virtual, April 2021
“How can Theatre the Oppressed inform our individual leadership styles?” SAVVY Arts Venture Challenge, University of South Carolina, SC, June 2019
“How Our Identities Bind or Blind Our Practice,” 24th Annual Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed Conference, Colorado State University-Pueblo, CO, June 2019
“Dear ‘Write’ Central: narrating black exclusion through MA Study” Performing Research Conference, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London UK, May 2019
“The Monologue Project,” Dramatist Guild Conference, New York, July 2018
“Community, Activism, Education: Bridging Methodologies - All Conference Dialogue,” Moderator, 23rd Annual Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed Conference, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA, June 2018
“Rehearsing the Revolution: Theatre of the Oppressed as a Tool for Change,” Inclusive Innovation Week, Pittsburgh, PA, April 2018
“Using Improv to Combat Everyday Microaggressions,” 18th Annual Summit Against Racism, East Liberty Presbyterian Church, PA, January 2016
“Dismantling Institutional Racism and Fighting for Racial Equality in Organizations,” 18th Annual Summit Against Racism, East Liberty Presbyterian Church, PA, January 2016
“Challenging White Supremacy in the Workplace,” Pittsburgh, PA, 15th Annual Summit Against Racism, East Liberty Presbyterian Church, PA, January 2013