This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, register by clicking the RSVP button above or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org.

You will receive the Zoom information no later than the morning of your program.

with Jodi Kanter

If you sometimes feel…
…like you’re in this alone…
…like you want to have more fun…
…like you’re working without a script…

Join Smith Center’s Young Adult Cancer Survivors for “Exploring Improvisation,” a new offering from dramatherapy intern Jodi Kanter. This group will meet monthly for 90-minute sessions based on the classic theater exercises of Viola Spolin.

Our improvisation activities will be different than popular styles of improv, which are designed to entertain an audience.

These simple, structured group activities will strengthen participants’ skills in the following ways:

• collaboration (connecting with others),
• spontaneity (finding joy), and
• experimentation (creating new stories).

We will apply these skills to storytelling in addition to our individual healing journeys. No previous experience needed.

Exploring Improvisation will be hosted Monthly on Sundays from 5:00-6:30pm ET. 

Upcoming Dates:

• January 30
• February 20
• March 20

Suggested Donation: $10

About Jodi Kanter

Jodi has been involved in theater since she was ten years old. She grew up acting and studying performance in American theater’s “Second City,” Chicago Illinois.  She is currently a professor of theatre in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, where she has been on faculty for nearly fifteen years. Her academic work in theater includes her book, Performing Loss: Strengthening Communities Through Theatre and Writing (2007). Jodi’s focus on performance as a tool for individual and social healing and change has led her to create workshops, events and productions in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, schools, and prisons.

Most recently, she co-created a four-month diversity and inclusion program for members of DC’s fourteen Neighborhood Village associations using the methodology of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Jodi holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in dramatherapy at Lesley University.