ANISSA WEINRAUB

Philly Education Stories

Philly Education Stories is a multi-year, multi-format project rooted in community. We use storytelling and theater as a cultural strategy to deepen relationships between educators, students and organizers in Philly; explore our experiences with schooling and the criminal punishment system; and amplify our visions for a transformed education and world.

It’s Time We Pay Them a Visit

The piece is an allegory/practice space for getting unstuck and taking action to stop the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (bell hooks, et.al.). It sits atop our dying world, and explores what it will take for us to hear our instincts and follow our impulses to take a collective next step to confront and dismantle the systems that are destroying us. Also, it’s a comedy.

HIDDEN HISTORIES OF WHITENESS

Part performance. Part interactive workshop. 

Using historical moments, real and imagined, as jumping-off points, this piece shines a light on (some of the) unexamined racialized violence of white supremacy to confront, claim-in-order-to-reject, and transform the inheritance of whiteness.

DIRECTOR/EDUCATOR

Anissa has worked as a theater director and teacher in Philadelphia’s public schools for the past 15 years. Her approach is anchored in the belief that education must ignite something within her students, help them put language to their lived experiences and dreams of a changed world, connect them to their most human selves, and create an open space for growth, imagination and full expression. Creating theater with her students -- both originally-devised ensemble work and scripted productions -- in the under-funded public schools, Anissa has managed to make magic through her deep commitment to her students, even with very few resources.