Why We Theater Broadway Podcast Network

In this Season 2 finale, Ruthie recommends currently running Broadway and Off-Broadway shows that speak to Why We Theater.

Paradise Square, now on Broadway

Alex Edelman's Just For Us

Ruthie Fierberg, Host
Ruthiefierberg.com 
IG: @whywetheater / T: @whywetheater
IG: @ruthiefierceberg / T: @RuthiesATrain
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In this week’s mini-episode, Ruthie recommends books—some novels, some memoirs—and television episodes that tell stories about homelessness. Then, taking a page out of Addressless’ book, Ruthie offers guides listeners through three at-home activities to better emotionally comprehend what it means to be at risk for homelessness and to experience it.

Organize a Sleep Out of your own.

Try Covenant House's "What Would You Do?" Activity.

Instructions for Losing Your Identity courtesy of Covenant House

Instructions for Privilege For Sale courtesy of Covenant House

Recommended Reads:
My Abandonment by Peter Rock
The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin
Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey From Homeless to Harvard by Liz Murray
From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle

Find your local independent bookstore.

Grey's Anatomy, Season 9, Ep 6
Station 19, Season 5, Ep 12

Create the change:

Learn more at the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH)

View homelessness statistics by state


Volunteer with or donate to Covenant House; Organize a Sleep Out in your community

Tell Congress to fund Homeless Assistance Grants (Click to sign a letter)


Read up on current legislation that would impact homelessness

How do we deal with our legislators?

Improve conditions in homeless shelters:

Hire well-trained staff, and hire enough of them

Bring mental health services to the shelters (i.e. have AA meetings on the premises, have mental health counselors on the premises)

What 4 experts have to say

Find a mentorship opportunity

Make cards with contact info to promote nearby shelters to hand out to those who are in need and asking for help

Donate clothes, especially socks, to nearby shelters

Participate in your city’s point-in-time count (signups are generally in Nov/Dec for the upcoming year - Google to find the PIT in your neighborhood)

Try rapid re-housing in your community

Learn about permanent supportive housing


Increase employment opportunities (adjust job applications so they do not require listing a permanent address)


Read the obstacles to solving the homelessness crisis—then counter them

Understand why homelessness is rising

Directory of Homeless Service Organizations by state

Sign up for Advocacy Alerts from the NAEH



Ruthie Fierberg, Host
Ruthiefierberg.com 
IG: @whywetheater / T: @whywetheater
IG: @ruthiefierceberg / T: @RuthiesATrain
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ADDRESSLESS: A Walk in Our Shoes played Off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in February 2022 as a virtual, interactive production. The play intimately and personally illustrated what it means to live homeless in New York City. Hungarian director Martin Boross and playwright Jonathan Payne explored this plight through three individuals living unhoused, each on a mission to acquire $1,500 while staying as healthy as they could. Experts Shams Da Baron (aka Da Homeless Hero), Covenant House International President Kevin Ryan, and playwright Jonathan Payne join host Ruthie Fierberg to dissect the play and offer answers to the solvable homelessness crisis in the U.S.
View the Digital Program for ADDRESSLESS.

Create the change:

Learn more at the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH)

View homelessness statistics by state


Volunteer with or donate to Covenant House; Organize a Sleep Out in your community

Tell Congress to fund Homeless Assistance Grants (Click to sign a letter)


Read up on current legislation that would impact homelessness

Improve conditions in homeless shelters:

Hire well-trained staff, and hire enough of them

Bring mental health services to the shelters (i.e. have AA meetings on the premises, have mental health counselors on the premises)

What 4 experts have to say

Find a mentorship opportunity

Make cards with contact info to promote nearby shelters to hand out to those who are in need and asking for help

Donate clothes, especially socks, & personal hygience items to nearby shelters

Participate in your city’s point-in-time count (signups are generally in Nov/Dec for the following year - Google to find the PIT in your neighborhood)

Try rapid re-housing in your community

Learn about permanent supportive housing


Increase employment opportunities for those without housing (don't make a permanent address a requirement on job applications)


Read: Obstacles to solving the homelessness crisis—then counter them

Understand why homelessness is rising

Directory of Homeless Service Organizations by state

Sign up for Advocacy Alerts from the NAEH



Referred to in this episode:

What is StereoAKT?

What is Covenant House?

2020 Point-in-Time Count

About the foster care system

What is a group home?

Foster care vs. Group home

What is transitional housing?

Human trafficking and homelessness

Privilege Sleep Out exercise

Legislation for Wifi in all shelters

Shams fact-check: Shams said, “In Harlem, 40% of the students that are in school here are, are in, are either homeless or housing or facing housing instability.” Reports show 1 in 10 NYC public school students is homeless, up to 1 in 5 depending on the area.

Read more on homelessness of NYC public school students & CUNY students


Greater risk of Black and brown, LGBTQ+ youth

What is Community Access?

How real estate development impacts homelessness


How redlining impacts homelessness (more on redlining)

What is the Lucerne and what was the controversy? 


Addressless’ How Can I Help? Worksheet (items incorporated in CTT)

The Childcare Tax Credit: How does it reduce child poverty?


How does that help alleviate homelessness?

What is the Poor People’s Movements?

What are Public Assistance Programs?


Open Hearts in NYC


Does shelter living cost money? Short answer: YES.


About Our Guests:
Ruthie Fierberg, Host
Ruthiefierberg.com 
IG: @whywetheater / T: @whywetheater
IG: @ruthiefierceberg / T: @RuthiesATrain

Jonathan Payne, Playwright @JPayneWrites
Shams DaBaron, Performer/Script consultant, Activist @homeless_hero
Kevin M. Ryan, President of Covenant House International @CovHousePrez
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Last week, American Utopia performer Tendayi Kuumba and experts Drs. Vinoo Alluri and Alejandro Lleras helped host Ruthie Fierberg take step back and welcome a broader perspective to problem-solving, beyond “What are the next steps to create change?” to “How do we find the next steps to create change?” 

The human brain is not a muscle, but it does need exercise—so to speak. To change the way we solve problems, we must change the way we approach problems. Change the very way we think. Actor and producer Salma Hayek had this same idea when she produced the 2014 animated film The Prophet, a movie adaptation of Kahlil Gibran’s 1923 eponymous book. Hayek also believed: “We need a new generation that goes into the unknown and finds solutions that we have not seen or heard.” So this week, Ruthie recommends The Prophet as the companion piece to American Utopia—currently on Broadway through April 3, 2022.

Listen to David Byrne’s American Utopia on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music.

Get tickets to David Byrne’s American Utopia on Broadway.

Watch David Byrne’s American Utopia on HBOMax.

Watch the animated movie The Prophet.

Purchase the book The Prophet from your local independent bookstore.

Sign up for Ruthie’s monthly newsletter at ruthiefierberg.com.

Referred to in this episode

Read: Ways to help those in Ukraine

Help refugees throughout the world

Kahlil Gibran’s book The Prophet


Ruthie’s Parents.com interview with Salma Hayek 


Connect with your host!
Ruthiefierberg.com 
IG: @whywetheater / T: @whywetheater
IG: @ruthiefierceberg / T: @RuthiesATrain

Why We Theater is a product of the Broadway Podcast Network produced by Alan Seales and edited by Derek Gunther. 

Our theme music is by Benjamin Velez. Hear more at BenjaminVelez.com.

Special thanks to Genesis Johnson, Leigh Silverman, Suzanne Chipkin, Wesley Birdsall, Elena Mayer, Patrick Taylor, and Dori Berinstein. 
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You might think David Byrne’s American Utopia on Broadway is a concert. It’s not. Yet, it’s not exactly a play or a musical. It’s something else outside the box. The Talking Heads frontman— along with choreographer Annie-B Parsons’ and a band of international musicians, vocalists, and dancers—creates a show about exploring the unconventional, especially when it comes to unconventional thought and thought processes. 

American Utopia made host Ruthie Fierberg wonder: How many solutions to society’s conflicts might we be overlooking because we think the way we have always thought? American Utopia performer Tendayi Kuumba and experts Dr. Vinoo Alluri and Dr. Alejandro Lleras join us to explore: What problems could we solve if we used more of our minds and used our minds differently? Could we achieve an American Utopia? 

Listen to the album of David Byrne’s American Utopia.

Watch David Byrne’s American Utopia on HBOMax.

Create the Change

Volunteer with Headcount to register voters at a performance of American Utopia

Volunteer with Headcount in general

Cultivate new and varied ways of thinking:

Enhance your own synesthesia

Try any of these “6 Ways to Rewire Your Brain”

If your main way of processing and working is to sit in one spot and concentrate, try talking a walk, dancing, exercising to make your brain work differently by engaging different activity patterns in your brain.


Develop your “openness” (one of the Big 5 personality traits)

Read about how openness can help you see the world differently

Read David Byrne’s How Music Works

Listen to music outside of your normal playlist

Dig into more research on music and cognition

Listen to “happy” music to promote divergent thinking (which leads to increased creativity)

Explore social justice through music, a curriculum

Improve your allyship


Referred to in this episode (in order of mention)


Letter from David Byrne about American Utopia



Listen to “Here” from American Utopia


See American Utopia’s set and costumes


Read about and watch Annie-B Parsons’ American Utopia choreography 

Your brain on music

Your brain listening to different genres of music

Grooviness of music

What is embodied cognition?

What is embodied cognition to music?

American Utopia’s partnership with Headcount


Watch Janelle Monae’s official music video for “Hell You Talmbout”

Your brain choreographed movement vs improvised movement


Watch this video debunking the MYTH: “Humans use 10 percent of our brains.”

What is pruning in the brain?

Babies learning language

What is synesthesia?

Research by Berit Brogaard to unlock more of brain’s potential

The truth about left brain vs. right brain

What is dadaism?


Listen to “I Zimbra” from American Utopia


David Byrne Talks Being a Good Ally and American Utopia

How making music can promote brain plasticity


About Our Guests:

Ruthie Fierberg, Host
Ruthiefierberg.com 
IG: @whywetheater / T: @whywetheater
IG: @ruthiefierceberg / T: @RuthiesATrain

Tendayi Kuumba, Performer @whostendayi

Dr. Vinoo Alluri PhD, musicologist and neuroscientist

Dr. Alejandro Lleras PhD, psychologist
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With the recent controversy surrounding Whoopi Goldberg and her remarks about the Holocaust, with the recent hostage situation at a Texas synagogue, with generational trauma and anti-Semitism on the brain, Why We Theater re-releases this episode from Season 1 with a new intro and new context.
Dig into Tony Award winner Steven Levenson's play IF I FORGET with Steven himself and experts Rabbi Shuli Passow (B'nai Jeshurun in New York City) and scholar Judah Isseroff.

Watch IF I FORGET on BroadwayHD.
Michael’s monologue, as performed by Tony Award nominee Jeremy Shamos, appears with the permission of Roundabout Theatre Company, which premiered IF I FORGET Off-Broadway in 2017, and Steven Levenson.

Referred to in this new intro


Watch: Whoopi Goldberg shares thoughts on the Holocaust on The View

Debra Messing tweets a helpful response to Goldberg


Banning of "Maus" in schools.... and the subsequent nationwide results


Hostage situation at Texas synagogue


Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA

What is Zionism?


Referred to in this episode


“The Rise of Social Orthodoxy: A Personal Account” by Jay P. Lefkowitz


“The Problem with ‘Social Orthodoxy’” by Joshua R. Fattal, a critical response to Lefkowitz


“What is the Talmud? Definition and Comprehensive Guide”, Yehuda Shurpin

Who is Theodore Herzl?

Who is David Ben-Gurion?

Who is Sheldon Adelson?

Who is “Adolf Eichmann”?

Who is Hannah Arendt


Neveragain.com

Anti-Defamation League: Fighting Hate for Good

What is Jerusalem Syndrome”?

 
Create the change

Learn more about Judaism — knowledge facilitates compassion with “Introduction to Judaism” OR “The Basics of Judaism”


Name anti-Semitic incidents as such, report them, and speak out against them

Use Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide


Learn about The New Israel Fund, which envisions a Jewish and democratic state

Fight for justice guided by Jewish values with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ)


Be aware of your own bias — it’s evolutionarily built in us to be tribal and we need to self-examine our thoughts and introduce dissenting viewpoints

If you are Jewish and looking for ways to become involved:

Choose a small tradition and incorporate that into your home, like lighting candles on Friday night for Shabat or saying the “Shema” before bed each night

Take inspiration from B’nai Jeshurun’s The Jewish Home Project


In COVID, many synagogues have moved services online; explore to find a place that feels right to you

 
Why We Theater is a product of part of the Broadway Podcast Network, edited by Derek Gunther, and produced by Alan Seales.
Follow us @whywetheater on Instagram & Twitter.
Our theme music is by Benjamin Velez. Hear more at BenjaminVelez.com.
Our logo is by Christina Minopoli. See more at MinopoliDesign.com.
Special thanks to Genesis Johnson, Dori Berinstein, Leigh Silverman, Patrick Taylor, Tony Montenieri, Elena Mayer, Wesley Birdsall, and Suzanne Chipkin.
 
Connect with Ruthie!
RuthieFierberg.com
Instagram: @ruthiefierceberg / @whywetheater
Twitter: @RuthiesATrain / @whywetheater
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