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An Artist And
An Activist
Congratulations
to the 2016 Recipients of the
B’nai B’rith Great Lakes Region College
Scholarship Program!
Meredith Starkman wins
U-M’s Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship.
Esther Allweiss Ingber | Contributing Writer
A
Jordan Halpern
Rachel Wasserman
year from
Department and director
now, Meredith
of the Prison Creative Arts
Starkman,
Project (PCAP).
a recent graduate of
Last year, in an effort
University of Michigan,
to connect her passion
will be midway through
for social justice with her
a great adventure of
acting training, Starkman
her own choosing. As
joined PCAP and took
this year’s winner of
Lucas’ course, “Theatre &
the Raoul Wallenberg
Incarceration.”
Fellowship at U-M, she
Starkman facilitated a
was awarded $25,000 to
weekly theater workshop
support a year of study
at Huron Valley Women’s
in India, starting in mid-
Correctional Facility in
October.
Pittsfield Township. Being
Meredith Starkman
The yearlong project
there, Starkman “quickly
brings together several
understood what Ashley
of Starkman’s interests. “I will explore
meant when she said, ‘Every workshop is
the relationship between theater, dance,
a miniature revolution.’ What I thought
music, politics and social justice,” she
I knew about art and politics and the
says, “with a particular focus on the ways way the two mingled, or didn’t, was chal-
arts education influences groups of peo-
lenged and proven wrong …
ple traditionally excluded from the main-
“Doing theater and creating art with
stream — including inmates, human
these women, a group of people largely
trafficking victims and at-risk youth.”
ignored and shunned by society, is inher-
Starkman, 21, the daughter of attor-
ently political. To provide those who are
neys Cindi Brody and Rob Starkman,
often forgotten and denied a voice a plat-
became a bat mitzvah at Congregation
form to create and express themselves is
Shaarey Zedek in Southfield. Her fam-
activism in its purest form.”
ily also includes her brother, Charlie
The workshops redefined the arts
Starkman; stepmother, Janie Starkman;
for her.
stepbrothers, Devin and Brandon
“Going into the prison and play-
Shallop; and grandmothers, Betty
ing with the concepts my peers and I
Starkman and Susan Brody.
regarded so formally in university acting
Starkman caught the acting bug at
courses felt like I was discovering hidden
Birmingham Groves High School, locat-
dualities,” she said. The inmates typically
ed in her hometown of Beverly Hills.
were seen “only as their mistakes and not
Every summer, she trained at Interlochen as fully fleshed-out, intricate people in
Arts Camp near Traverse City.
context with their circumstances.”
After auditioning for nearly a dozen
Starkman also learned about Augusto
theater programs at colleges across the
Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), a
country, Starkman enrolled at U-M’s
movement utilizing theater as a method
School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Her for social change.
favorite stage roles included “Jean” in
She joined a small group of students
August: Osage County and “Sympathy the accompanying Lucas to the TO confer-
Learned” in Arabian Nights. On April 29, ence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The U-M
Starkman was her school’s commence-
group participated in theater and art
ment speaker at the Power Center. A day workshops, conferences and classes
later, at Michigan Stadium, she received
“geared toward changing oppressive sys-
her bachelor of fine arts degree in act-
tems of power,” Starkman said.
ing, with minors in community action
“The topics were controversial — race,
and social change, and performing arts
policy, gender, discrimination — yet the
management.
quality of the theater was unbelievable,”
One influential instructor for
she said. “The myth that good theater
Starkman was Ashley Lucas, associate
and in-your-face, outright political com-
professor in the Theatre and Drama
mentary are mutually exclusive was
Max Rotenberg
Scholarships will be awarded at the
34th Annual B’nai B’rith Golf Classic Dinner
Monday, June 6th
At Tam O’Shanter Country Club.
For more information or to donate,
visit www.bnaibrith.org/scholarship or contact us at
248.646.3100.
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16 May 26 • 2016
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