This public lecture will address how theater productions can impact public policy and civic participation. The talk will address questions such as these: How is a government meeting a performance of power? What can we learn and achieve by performing it differently? How do the maps we carry in our body lead us toward new approaches to policy? What happens if we work together and then share our different experiences of navigating the same space?

Aaron Landsman is a New York-based playwright, performer, teacher and organizer and currently works as Lecturer in Theater at the Keller Center for the Arts at Princeton University.  His awards include a Creative Capital Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an ASU Gammage Residency, a Princeton Arts Fellowship, and a fellowship at Loghaven Artist Residency. His artistic projects have been presented in NYC, regionally, and abroad. His 2022 work Trouble Hunters premiered in Novi Sad, Serbia, in collaboration with the collective Kulturanova, and his 2016 diptych Empathy School/Love Story premiered at Abrons Arts Center and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. His 2012-14 project City Council Meeting, created with Mallory Catlett and Jim Findlay, has been presented in five US cities.

              Landsman also started and co-directs Perfect City, a 20-year multigenerational, multi-racial collective working on gentrification, city planning, urban design and safety for women and non-binary people. Perfect City is currently funded by Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Program and the NEA. Landsman is currently developing School for Participation, a civic engagement toolkit using creativity as a starting point for public advocacy, and he is beginning to partner with the National Civic League. His current and recent theater works include Night Keeper, which premiered at The Chocolate Factory Theater last year and will be released as an album on the Hallow Ground label this November; a libretto commissioned and premiered by Gaudeamus in The Netherlands; and All The Time in the World, a game-based devised performance about collective self-regard and social media.

This event will be held in-person at the Denbo Center for Humanities & the Arts on Sutherland Avenue and also will be livestreamed. See livestream registration link below.  This public talk is part of the Denbo Center's 2025-26 Distinguished Lecture Series.