Research-based Theatre Lab Online Conversation Series: March 2023

Our 2023 Research-based Theatre Lab Online Conversation Series begins this March 1, 1:00 PM-2:00 PM (PST). The event is taking place on Zoom (to sign up for the event, please contact us). The series provides a chance for panellists working in Research-based Theatre (RbT) to provide stimuli to provoke rich conversations. 

For this session, we will be joined by Henry Hank Greenspan in conversation with Laen Hershler. Hank and Laen will be discussing Hank's research-based play REMNANTS, which has been performed over 300 times. This event will include the reading of short excerpts from the play. 

Please note all conversation series event times are in PST. 

Henry Hank Greenspan is a psychologist, oral historian, and playwright at the University of Michigan (emeritus) who has been interviewing, teaching, and writing about Holocaust survivors since the 1970s.  Rather than one-time “testimonies,” Greenspan’s approach has been to meet with the same survivors over months, years, even decades.  That approach is summarized in On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Beyond Testimony. In 2012, he was the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Montreal’s Concordia University. His play, REMNANTS, also based on his sustained conversations with survivors, has been staged at more than 300 venues worldwide.

Laen Hershler is a performing artist, expert facilitator of creative processes and an investigator in the field of Research Based Theatre (RBT). He has vast experience working with artists, business people, teachers and students of all ages and backgrounds. His facilitation style is engaging, entertaining and highly interactive. Laen began his career as a performer/educator touring internationally and giving workshops on various aspects and uses of physical theatre for both children and adults. (France, Korea, Australia, Kenya, South Africa). Since attaining his MA (UCT) in 2011, he has been an instructor at the Creative Studies Faculty at UBC (Kelowna) and the Education Faculty at UBC (Vancouver). Laen is currently pursuing further graduate work at UBC where he is interested in the application of RBT across disciplines and especially to facilitate dialogue on difficult topics across culturally sensitive issues.