Community Builder
Ricky is a community builder, arts educator, imagination cultivator, and outreach facilitator. Serving a network of families and organizations spanning the East coast, he finds joy in building villages of people who have a shared humanity.
As a young teaching artist, he finds himself repeating the mantra “let our children play in the grass” to his students quite often. Working in outreach programs and valiantly aiming to expose black and brown children to the practices of play, requires that he remembers the pleasure of play. He practices honest, imperfect, playful, and community centered theatre. Whether it is Shakespeare, contemporary BIPOC, or work devised from the marginalized voice, Ricky believes in theatre that is not jaded with formality or dishonesty, but is actively engaging with the present moment and answering big questions in civic life.
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Ricky goes where the love is.
He believes that we are uninhibited vessels and limitless in the things we can teach and learn from others. In his work serving youth, he has gravitated towards exposing youth of color in disadvantaged areas the power of creativity. However, he recognizes that the estranged relationship between theatre and many of the communities he serves is complex and requires exploration.
Despite this, he practices patience. He remains an active listener and he pushes his students and communities to view themselves with the beauty, magic, and grandeur of royalty. Nothing is more precious to him than a community who feels honestly depicted and represented because they have ownership, collaboration, and trust in the project they have created together.
Through Youth & Outreach, Applied Theatre, Theatre for Youth and Community, and Forum Theatre, Ricky utilizes music, world literature, physical theatre, and other creative drama practices to shape story. He has worked with ages in several different spaces and finds interest in examining how art can live in areas where they are not present, but are desperately needed. He has served several non profits in these efforts and brings 100% to every family and child that he serves.
He recognizes the power of a single story, our rich cultural anthropological origins in storytelling, the fellowship in creativity, and the desperate desire for every voice to be heard globally.
