Courtney J. Boddie
Creator, Host
Ben Weber
Producer
Courtney is an actor, director, teaching artist and artistic director of a theater collective called a space between. Vice President, Education & School Engagement at The New Victory Theater overseeing New Victory Education Partnerships bringing 40,000 students from over 200 NYC schools, after schools, and summer programs to see high-quality live performing arts; classroom workshops; professional development for classroom teachers, and supervises 55+ teaching artists. President of the board of directors for Association of Teaching Artists; editorial board of Teaching Artist Journal; NYC Arts-in-Education Roundtable: Teaching Artist Committee and Taskforce on Equity and Inclusion. She is adjunct faculty for the Educational Theatre Graduate Program (course: The Teaching Artist) at New York University where she also received her Master’s degree.
Ben is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist, administrator and arts educator, collaborating with a wide array of cultural organizations including Performance Space New York, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Kitchen, Urban Green Council, Brooklyn Arts Council, Creative Arts Team, New Victory Theater, New York City Children's Theatre, Brooklyn Arts Exchange / BAX, Triskellion Arts, The People's Improv Theater, Atlantic Pacific Theater, and Silverlake Jewish Community Center.
Ben holds a BA from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study where he created the concentration "Theatricality and Taboo" examining how forbidden topics manifest on stage through the lenses of anthropology, linguistics, critical theory, and performance studies. He earned an MA in Applied Theatre from the City University of New York's School of Professional Studies. His culminating project, "Arts Together," invited moms and kids living in a New Jersey domestic violence shelter to participate in a series of collaborative art-making workshops.
Christopher Totten
Director, Creative Content
Christopher is an actor, singer and arts administrator. He is the Assistant Director of Education/School Engagement at New 42/New Victory in New York City, where he oversees and manages the content creation and facilitation of all teacher professional development programs including New Victory Professional Learning Labs, Creativity Intensives and in-school professional development workshops. He also creates all content for New Victory School Tool Resource Guides, offering educators and students a range of curated art form-based and theme-based activities, student-centered creativity sheets, as well as information about artists, companies and productions presented on the New Victory stage. Christopher has worked to expand and elevate New Victory Education’s approach to teacher professional development, and the theatergoing and theater viewing experience for kids. For the past six years, he has also worked in partnership with the NYCDOE on Create, a theater-based professional development track for Pre-K educators across NYC. Christopher holds a BFA in Theatre Arts from the University of the Arts and a Master’s degree in Educational Theatre from New York University. As a performer, he has toured the United States in productions of Annie and Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. He has also appeared in regional and local productions of The 25th Annual...Spelling Bee, I Can Get It For You Wholesale, Unlock'd, The Late Christopher Bean, and The Black Dahlia. His passions include directing, dramaturgical research and devised theatre. Christopher is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association.