BIO

Amelia Hefferon is a theatre artist, educator, and facilitator committed to using theatre as a tool for education, social justice, and community building. As a teaching artist and facilitator, Amelia has worked with a wide range of arts and community organizations across Chicago, New York, and Detroit, including Lookingglass Theatre Company, Silk Road Rising, Adventure Stage Chicago, Raven Theatre, Story Pirates, CAT Youth Theatre, Matrix Theatre, and more. Acting credits include THE LITTLE PRINCE (Lookingglass), ANIMAL FARM (Steppenwolf Theatre Co.), and SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM (Porchlight Music Theatre) among others, including work at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Theatre Wit, and Theatre Unspeakable. Amelia is a founding member of the Defrost Project, an artist collective that uses theatre and storytelling to investigate local issues and catalyze connection in rural communities. Her graduate thesis project explored how theatre can serve as an investigative tool in addressing access, inclusion, and representation in museum spaces. Amelia holds a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and a MA in Applied Theatre from the City University of New York. She loves art history, scary movies, and dancing. She lives in Detroit with her partner and two cats.

INSPIRED BY

Nature
Renaissance and Baroque painting
My friends and colleagues
World-class runners
Libraries
Irish ballads
Death (the concept of)
Black Radical Feminism
Lighthouses
Lake Michigan
When people admit they made a mistake and find grace in accountability
People who shift careers/paths/relationships/identities late in life
People who make bold offerings
People who get unapologetically excited about what they love
Teenagers
Children

EXPLORING:

I'm primarily an actor and teacher, but I've dabbled a little in playwriting and have been harboring an idea/sparklet/concept for a play I want to write. I've long been fascinated with saints (lapsed Catholic here!) and I want to write an anachronistic, fantastical play centered around some of my favorites ones. Perhaps it will end up being interactive. It will almost definitely grapple with issues of justice, inclusion, inner-conflict, and identity. I am accustomed to having my performances and facilitation critiqued, but I haven't shared writing with anyone in a long time. This will be a scary but really exciting undertaking.

INSPIRATION FOR PROJECT:

I've studied a lot of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque art in which saints are heavily featured and am still rather obsessed with those artifacts and histories. I remain mesmerized by the ritual and magic involved in many traditions of the Catholic church while unequivocally rejecting its dogma. I feel compelled by that cognitive dissonance. I recently read a book called The Power of Ritual. Its author, Casper ter Kuile, describes how various groups and individuals have excavated meaningful rituals and traditions from (sometimes) exclusive and harmful religious ideologies and modernized, transformed, and reclaimed them for communal, creative, or healing purposes. The saints have always been my favorite part of Catholicism, and I'm wondering how they might fit in to this new tradition of reclamation and re-imagination.