Inspiring Women : November 2020

Producing Theater for Social Change
Molly Moylan Brown
“When you bring consciousness to anything,
things begin to shift.” Eve Ensler
Sometimes, when the stars align, magic happens. Theater, as one of my teachers, Augusto Boal,
said, can mobilize communities to participate collectively and actively, not merely as spectators, to
motivate real social change in the pursuit of a just and equitable society.
I thought I’d experienced the pinnacle of theater’s transformative power while living in Ireland. In
1998, soon after the Good Friday Agreement was signed, a handful of intrepid Protestants and
Catholics in Belfast conceived a joint community theater project. These two working-class
communities had lived as virulent enemies for decades through the Troubles. But this small group
of citizens took it upon themselves to find people from both sides of the sectarian divide to get
involved in a theater project. Participants put themselves and their families at risk because it was
seen by many as a betrayal of their respective communities. I documented this first-ever Protestant
– Catholic community theater project. It was extraordinary to witness the participants’ bravery and
commitment to the project over many months to motivate a real confrontation with their past, to
transform their relationships and find a deeper understanding and peace.
My involvement with theater
— writing, directing,
performing — began at an
early age, in another divided
place: West Berlin. I
delighted in staging shows,
creating games and writing
skits as a middle child in my
large, rather chaotic
American family, where
everyone jockeyed for
position to be seen, heard
and valued.
As a young adult, I entered
professional theater,
working as an actress,
writer, director and
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Molly Brown, with members of the cast, speaking in 2017