Add Verb Productions at University of New England

UNE’S ADD VERB PRODUCTIONS PARTNERS WITH THE NATIONAL EATING DISORDERS ASSOCIATION AND MAINELY GIRLS TO BRING “THE THIN LINE” TO MAINE LEGISLATORS ON FEBRUARY 26 DURING NATIONAL EATING DISORDERS AWARENESS WEEK

Kris — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:12:47 +0000

AUGUSTA, ME – University of New England’s Add Verb Productions has partnered with The National Eating Disorders Association and Mainely Girls to present “The Thin Line” to Maine legislators on Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 3:30 p.m. in the Welcome Center of the State House in Augusta. The event aims to create awareness for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (February 23-March 2), and let policy makers know what they can do to prevent this serious illness that affects many young people.
“The Thin Line,” written by Add Verb Executive Director Cathy Plourde, is a 30-minute one-woman show that breaks the silence surrounding eating disorders. It has toured nationally to colleges, high schools, community centers and conferences since 2000. It weaves together the voices of four characters—a girl who is struggling, her internal negative voice, her mother, and a friend—showing how the disease affects not only the individual struggling, but also how it impacts his or her surrounding family and circle of friends. The Thin Line has received high praise from experts, health care providers, teachers, parents, college students and youth.
In the United States, as many as 10 million women and one million men are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Approximately 25 million more are struggling with other forms of disordered eating. Eating Disorders are the third most common chronic illness among adolescents; they have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, and they affect every organ system in the body. Serious, long-term health complications can be avoided, if eating disorders are detected early. Awareness and early intervention are keys to prevention.

UNE is an innovative health sciences university grounded in the liberal arts, with two distinctive coastal Maine campuses and unique study abroad opportunities. UNE has internationally recognized scholars in the sciences, health, medicine and humanities, and offers more than 40 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs.

The Thin Line a cornerstone of ISU ED Awareness Week

Kris — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:35:18 +0000

This year The Thin Line (and actress Lauran Paten Hughes) is spending ED Awareness week at Iowa State University and with the Maine State Legislature.

ISU has a strong coalition of departments and programs including ISU Student Counseling Services, the Program for Women in Science and Engineering, the ISU Committee on Lectures, Students of Education and Clinical Psychology, and the Division of Student Affairs who have teamed up with the Eating Disorder Coalition of Iowa and Waukee High School to bring a week of events highlighting eating disorder awareness and prevention. They are screening the film Miss Representation, throwing a party to celebrate the body you currently have, and presenting The Thin Line twice! You can download the program for the week here.

Back on the east coast, Add Verb (and actress Emily Dennis) will be presenting The Thin Line to our Maine State Legislators in the State House Welcome Center on Tuesday, February 26th at 4PM. Mainely Girls and the National Eating Disorders Association have worked with Add Verb to highlight this issue as part of our week-long tour of Aroostook County in April. Please encourage your legislator to attend – follow this link to email them your story about what Add Verb and Eating Disorder Awareness & Prevention mean to you! http://www.maine.gov/legis/house/hbiolist.htm

Add Verb Productions and Mainely Girls at Maine Public Health Association annual conference

Kris — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:27:29 +0000

UNE’s Add Verb Productions Director Cathy Plourde presented, The Thin Line with actor Emily Dennis to a standing room only crowd. They were accompanied by Mainely Girls – an independent program complementary to Add Verb in their efforts to help the state’s efforts to combat eating disorders. The Thin Line is a one-woman show addressing coping with eating disorders which is presented to schools and universities, as well as to health care professionals. The play serves as an intervention tool, providing knowledge and awareness with a call to action, recognizing that the sooner a person struggling with the illness can get help the better and sooner recovery can occur.
Mary Orear, the Executive Director of Mainely Girls has been organizing “treatment teams” in rural areas throughout Maine to work together to help girls, boys, men and women in their region, and maintains a listing of professionals on their website. Additionally, Mainely Girls helps direct individuals, whether family or professionals, to other resources and options for resources and presents to students as well as faculty in schools about prevention and early intervention. Add Verb and Mainely Girls are planning a tour of Aroostook County with both the play and the Mainely Girls presentation, and have received partial funding from the Sadie & Harry Davis Foundation to do so.

Out & Allied recognized by Southern Poverty Law Center in Teaching Tolerance this month

Kris — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:59:11 +0000

Add Verb has been recognized by the magazine staff of Teaching Tolerance for their book, “Out & Allied,” an anthology of performance pieces written by LGBTQ youth and allies.

Teaching Tolerance listed “Out & Allied” as a best pick in culturally aware literature and resources for professional development and teachers of all grades in their fall 2012 edition. “Out and Allied” was edited by Add Verb Director Cathy Plourde along with Meghan Brodie, Ph.D. from the University of Southern Maine, Add Verb AmeriCorps Vista Volunteers and youth interns.

Teaching Tolerance said Add Verb’s book “gives center stage to a compelling collection” of 34 monologues, plays and poems, adding “The chapters on presentation, production, writing and leadership transform this anthology into a young activists’ handbook.”

Teaching Tolerance has a semi-annual circulation of 600,000. It is a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the nation’s leading providers of anti-bias education resources.

This past summer Add Verb Director Plourde presented workshops at :the Pride Youth Theatre Alliance in Boston, MA; the Association of Theatre in Higher Education’s annual conference held in Washington D.C.; and at the American Alliance for Theatre Education in Lexington, KY.

Add Verb Productions is a nonprofit program of the University of New England headquartered in Portland, Maine that provides health and wellness education through provocative theatre performances with the goal of building stronger, healthier communities. View the “Out & Allied” Book Trailer <http://bit.ly/oatrailer> which was created by UNE interns.

See the spread by downloading the PDF here: Add Verb Teaching Tolerance Staff Pick

Cathy Plourde discusses Add Verb Productions focus on domestic violence on WMPG Safe Place

Kris — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:49:28 +0000

On Wednesday, April 18, 2012, Cathy Plourde, director of of UNE’s Add Verb Productions, appeared as a guest on the the WMPG show Safe Space. The interview, which is online, is part of the show’ s current focus on domestic violence. Plourde talked about Add Verb’s new play, “Major Medical Breakthrough.”

“Major Medical Breakthrough” focuses on the role that all health care providers can play in preventing domestic violence.

Plourde tells the story of writing a play to inspire health care providers to screen their patients for domestic violence. She gave sobering statistics about the high numbers of women and some men, who are being abused who see their doctors during the abuse and are never asked about it. Indeed only 10-19 percent of doctors report that they screen their patients routinely for domestic violence. Plourde stressed that where there is domestic violence, there is also likely to be sexual assault, something that often goes unasked about. Listen to the half hour interview.

Add Verb was founded in 2000 with a mission of using theatre in health and wellness education, and is currently a program of the University of New England’s Westbrook College of Health Professions.

Add Verb Director is Guest on WMPG’s “Safe Space”

Kris — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:51:25 +0000

This Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Cathy Plourde of UNE’s Add Verb Productions will be a guest on the WMPG (90.9 and 104.1) radio show Safe Space. The interview is part of the show’ s current focus on domestic violence. Cathy will talk about two of Add Verb’s plays: Major Medical Breakthrough, which focuses on the role that all health care providers can play in preventing domestic violence; and You the Man, a play that engages bystanders in addressing unhealthy teen dating and sexual assault for high school, college and community audiences.

Dating violence play and panel discussion coming to Dexter

Kris — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:43:04 +0000

Written by Sheila Grant

Wednesday, 07 March 2012 09:16

Portland-based actor Brian Chamberlain plays five roles in 30 minutes during “You the Man” and, “Within 15 seconds he has got audience in palm of his hand and you’re hooked for the whole ride,” according to Kris Hall, assistant director. (Contributed photo)

DEXTER – “You the Man” (YTM) has been making the rounds of high schools and communities in 35 states, Bermuda and Japan since 2004, but has never been to this region before. A series of small-town connections and grassroots efforts are making it possible for students and faculty at Dexter Regional High School to view the show during the day on March 20, and for the public to attend a free performance at 6 p.m. at the school.
The 30-minute, one-man play is “intended to help people not only recognize if a friend or family member is dealing with abuse or violence, but to know how best to support them,” said Cathy Plourde, who wrote and directed the production. Through the perspectives of five different men, the play “explores how difficult it can be to know what to do, but underscores that we must do something to help each other.”
Kris Hall, assistant director of the play, is a 1987 graduate of DRHS who went on to get a degree in political science at the University of Southern Maine before joining Add Verb Productions. Hall’s brother, Joel Hall, was a classmate of the late Amy Lake, who was killed in her Dexter rental home on July 13, 2011, along with her son Coty, 13, and daughter Monica, 12, by estranged husband Steven Lake, who then killed himself. It was Hall’s mother, Connie Hall, who brought the play to the attention of her fellow members of the Abbott Memorial Library Trustees. That group reached out to Womancare in Dover-Foxcroft, and together, the partners have gathered support from area businesses, organizations and individuals to sponsor a free evening showing of YTM.
“In a small town, you know that people have problems,” said Kris Hall. “You know that things go on, and it’s hard to have a constructive conversation about it. It’s hard to name it. And what Add Verb Productions does is to safely name it, safely discuss it, and safely present tools for people to use when forced by circumstances to cope with it. I hope Dexter will take the opportunity from the tragedy of Amy, Coty, and Monica to become known, not as the place where things like this occur, but as the place that took brave and community-changing steps to prevent things like this in the future.”
There is curriculum which accompanies the play for the students, and the presentation is followed by a panel discussion with advocates from Womancare and Rape Response Services, as well as local law enforcement. Members of the University of Maine’s Male Athletes Against Violence group may also sit on the panel.
“If it all works out, there may be some others, but not too big of a panel because the intent is to have a conversation with the community,” said Art Jette, Womancare’s community relations coordinator. And if that community conversation is particularly painful for any audience members, “part of the whole plan is to have an adequate number of trained advocates on hand to debrief and process with individuals, and safe places after both shows, to process individual issues that might arise as part of the experience of the show itself.”
Jette is no stranger to tragedy. His grandson, Treven Cunningham, 21-months, and family friend Mindy Gould, 20, were killed by Gould’s ex-boyfriend on December 3, 1999 in Dexter. Jette’s subsequent work with Womancare, and with Parents of Murdered Children, has helped him form a relationship with Gov. Paul LePage, who was a victim of domestic abuse during his childhood. Jette invited the governor to the Dexter presentation of YTM.
While LePage’s schedule is always subject to change, “The governor does plan to attend the evening showing of the play in Dexter on March 20,” said Adrienne Bennett, press secretary. “The ‘You the Man’ program is a great example of how students are standing up against domestic violence and the governor wholeheartedly supports their efforts.”
Grants from the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Maine Community Foundation are paying for YTM to appear in 20 high schools in Maine, but funds must be raised to cover the community performances. The Abbott Memorial Library Trustees are still collecting donations. Checks made out to the trustees may be mailed to: Abbott Memorial Library Trustees, 1 Church Street, Dexter 04930.
“We wanted to offer this free to the community so students would have the opportunity to bring parents back to see it, and so that other people could see it,” said Connie Hall, noting that sooner or later, everyone knows someone in a domestic violence situation. “We wanted to put those tools out there. This is what you can do so that you do not to stand by powerlessly and say, ‘I should have done something.’”

Gift from the Phineas W. Sprague Memorial Fund = Free Books to Maine Schools

Kris — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:40:32 +0000

Through the Sprague Foundation, 60 copies of the Out & Allied Anthology are free to schools and congregations in Maine. Single copies will be mailed at no charge, and additional copies for those groups are available for $10 (includes S&H).

The mission of this book is to help groups raise awareness and open conversation about how to create a safe environment for all people, regardless of their orientation or identity. School personnel or congregation representatives only need to submit a request and a short statement about why the book would be helpful to their community and how it will be used.

All of the 34 performance pieces in the book are royalty-free, meaning that there is no charge to use or present these performances. Accompanying these pieces is a handbook for youth and adults alike who wish to present an educational program for other students, parents, or the community. Bonny Eagle High School recently participated in an Out & Allied Project, and used the book to help create new works presented for parents and students during No Name Calling Week. Said one participant:

“It allowed me to face my past and have sympathy toward my bullies; it gave me a way to express myself through writing, and finally, I have become less judgmental of others because of it. I believe that this process can do all that and much more for others, both on stage and in the audience.” Another student said, “For me, I was finally able to open up to the bullying I went through my freshman year of high school and it was so relieving to finally be able to get that off my chest and feel like I wasn’t alone and it wasn’t okay.”

Participants in the Out & Allied Project are encouraged to use the book to create audio files or short videos that can be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo, and more importantly, young people are encouraged to create and submit new pieces to Add Verb for other youth groups to present, in Maine or around the country.

To receive a free book for your Maine school or congregation, please go to http://bit.ly/yVLoTw!

For more information contact Add Verb at addverb@une.edu or 221-4491.

Cathy Plourde Honored with Hardy Girls Healthy Women’s Annual Activist Award

Kris — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:26:53 +0000

Cathy Plourde will be awarded with Hardy Girls Healthy Women’s annual Co-Creator Award as part of Girls Rock Weekend this year.

The Co-Creator award is given annually to a Maine woman whose work is advancing the Hardy Girls’ vision that all girls and women experience equality, independence, and safety in their everyday lives.

Plourde is the founder and Program Director of Add Verb Productions at the Westbrook College of Health Professions, University of New England. Add Verb promotes health and wellness education through theater. Add Verb was founded in 2004 and in 2011 the program was added to University of New England’s InterProfessional Education Collaborative. Add Verb programs have reached more than 150,000 people in 35 states and internationally.

Hardy Girls co-creator and professor at Colby College, Dr. Lyn Mikel Brown said the co-creators chose Cathy for her passionate commitment to youth activism and social justice. “Cathy Plourde is a singular talent, with a keen sense of how to develop safe spaces for youth and open people’s hearts and minds. As a writer, director, and producer, she has devoted her life to creating more inclusive communities and scaffolding youth activism. Lynn, Karen, and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of our Co-Creator Award.”

An additional five Maine girls will be honored for their advocacy work to promote equality in sports, health, business, and communities during the weekend, which is scheduled for March 30^th-April 1^st, 2012. More information on Girls Rock Weekend can be found on Hardy Girls’ website: www.hghw.org

Hardy Girls Healthy Women (HGHW) is a nonprofit organization located in Waterville, ME dedicated to the health and well-being of girls and women. HGHW is striving to create a world where women experience equality, independence, and safety in their everyday lives.

Proceeds from new book to benefit Add Verb Productions

Kris — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:18:01 +0000

What Method?: The Different Ways an Actor can Train

Author and friend of Add Verb Jessie Fahay has written a book enumerating the different methodologies by which actors train. This short and practical guidebook gives you the nuts and bolts of four pinnacle training methods, sample exercises for each method, examples of actors who have used these methods, the places where you can find these methods being taught, and further in-depth literature on each method.

Jessie has generously donated a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book to Add Verb! To all you aspiring actors, grab a copy in support of your career, and of Add Verb.

What Method on Amazon

Thank you Jessie!