A Live Reading: Exploring Healthcare Themes

JNS Theater for Social Change, based in New York and active throughout the United States, is working with the UNO Department of English and UNO Medical Humanities for the third consecutive year to guide students in the development of short plays that center on important, provocative social issues surrounding illness, healing and healthcare. 

This year, the Office of Faculty Development at the University of Nebraska Medical Center is a co-sponsor. Eight UNMC/Nebraska Medicine employees—healthcare workers and staff—were selected to work alongside UNO students to write one-act plays based on their experiences and have them performed in tandem with student plays live on Zoom by New York and local actors on April 19.

This event is free to attend, but registration is requested: Register Here

Founder/Artistic Director Julia Hansen and Managing Artistic Director Stephen Cedars, who lead JNS Theater for Social Change, demonstrate that the tools of playwriting offer powerful opportunity for students and others to engage both with their own complicated feelings about social injustice as well as the discourse surrounding that injustice.

“Here at UNO, we focus on helping participants compose plays that reflect on complicated situations in healthcare,” said Stephen Cedars. “We’re in awe of how UNO students are able to grasp this new medium and use it to create thought-provoking and funny conflicts, insights, and takeaways.”

“The students in English 4970/8976 Writing about Sickness and Health course are both nervous and excited to work in a new medium,” said Steve Langan, Director and Community Liaison for UNO Medical Humanities. “And, thanks to UNMC, we’re glad to have the chance to bring our healthcare worker neighbors and colleagues to the table and explore this interprofessional relationship and also try to help them a bit.”

The live reading, which is open to the public and free of charge, is on Monday, April 19, from 5:30-8:00 CT.

Colleagues at Metropolitan Community College will host a talk-back with Cedars and Hansen on Tuesday, April 20. Contact Steve Langan at slangan@unomaha.edu with more information about this event and any questions.

You can learn more about JNS Theater for social change at their website—https://theaterforsocialchange.weebly.com—or by emailing them directly at 2020tfsc@gmail.com.

Ted Kooser Center for Health Humanities: The Ted Kooser Center for Health Humanities, an endeavor selected as a UNO Big Idea and launched in late 2019, grows faculty and student research and creative activities in an effort to form a nationally-recognized center of excellence in health humanities that builds on partnerships across UNMC and the Omaha metro area.