"The Restorative Theatre Training Method process showed me

how to put together a show without compromising

the mental/emotional health of your cast and crew."

~ Student actor, Young Griots: New Works for the Stage 2025

Denise is experienced in creating transformational trainings that support arts leaders, educators and practitioners, helping them learn from the past, create meaningful change and elevate organizational narrative and image.

To schedule a chat about supporting your program contact her at restorativetheatre@gmail.com

Founded by Professor Denise J. Hart, the Restorative Theatre Performance Project (RTPP), is a collaborative theatre arts-based research initiative that employs restorative practices in multi-disciplinary programing and professional development training designed to build bridges between theatre, science and culture to engender social change.

Restorative practices have ancient roots in Indigenous cultures worldwide that focus on repairing harm. It employs the idea that a thriving community is interconnected and when harm occurs it does not simply affect those involved, but the entire community.

The arts are inherently multi-disciplinary and have always been used to incite change, thus, RTPP develops arts centric multi-disciplinary programming and provides professional development training that utilize restorative practices to offer the arts community new paradigms for ways of thinking, knowing and being.

Our signature professional development training program, the Restorative Theatre Training Method (RTTM) is designed for students, faculty and staff to support existing academic theatre training processes with techniques informed by restorative practices that center care, wellbeing and artistic rigor.

RTTM's tools and techniques sit comfortably alongside the practical skills based training used by colleges and universities to prepare students for performance, administrative and technical job opportunities.

Multi-Disciplinary Programming

Restorative Theatre Performance Project’s multi-disciplinary programming strives to explore societal issues with integrated communities of various academic disciplines, practitioners and community members.

Our programming addresses complex, real-world problems with the goal of creating new holistic understandings that generate collaboration, co-creation, shared understanding along with ideas and actionable solutions.

Programs

Young Griots: New Works for the Stage, is the collaborative student play development program, that celebrates the powerful voices of young emerging playwrights of color who address social change through their work.

Play Development Lab is a play development incubator offering comprehensive play development support to professional Black women playwrights.

The Lab, an academic creative research endeavor is under the direction of Professor Denise J. Hart and collaborates with the Howard University Department of Theatre Art's New Works Initiative.

Through this program, Professor Hart aims to help Black women playwrights advance creative processes, enhance their craft, and foster long-term careers.

Professional Development Training

Our signature training program, the Restorative Theatre Training Method (RTTM) designed for students, faculty and staff to support existing academic theatre training processes with techniques informed by restorative practices that center practitioner care, wellbeing and artistic rigor.

RTTM's tools and techniques sits comfortably alongside the practical skills based training used by colleges and universities to prepare students for performance, administrative and technical job opportunities.

RTTM is a response to the #MeToo movement (2017) and the #WeSeeYouWhiteAmericanTheatre movement (2020).

It adds to the existing initiatives that focus on harm reduction like Intimacy Coordinators and Directors by engaging the methodology of restorative practices to help theatre leaders and practitioners to move towards eradicating the overly competitive and punitive hierarchical power structure and the perpetuation of harmful industry practices which remain pervasive in audition, rehearsal and performance.

During our signature professional development workshop, "Restorative Theatre Training: Wellbeing, Care and Artistic Rigor" faculty, staff and students learn techniques from these 5 pillars:

Consent: Intimacy Direction & the Language of Informed Engagement
Trust: Integrity Based Audition & Rehearsal
Artistic Rigor: How to Avoid Stress Overload
Wellbeing: Agency, Agreements & Accountability
Purpose: Centering Social Change

I was trained to think of theatre training as art but during my 30 year professional and academic career I realized

that interrogating theatre as a "science” alongside the exploration of theatre as “art”

allowed me to train the "whole person" and focus on wellbeing.

And train my students in a way that did not reduce artistic rigor.

In fact, it was enhanced.

~ Professor Denise J. Hart

Restorative Theatre Training Method Impact!

"When I finished up my MFA last year, I took a class in 2024 called theater in the classroom that literally transformed my life. However, I realized that changes must be made not only in my own practice but in the entire structure in order to make stronger shifts and changes in how we approach theater. Your method is in line with my philosophy and I am so grateful that I met you and I hope to continue working with you as we implement these changes. " ~ Theatre Faculty Member

"Denise, I think what you are doing is extraordinary. I have been a professional actor since 1991. In that time, I was put into a highly abusive situation by a few of directors. Two situations were sexual harassment, and I was too young to know how to protect myself, or that I could report it. I think you could help the entire industry by offering a lab that lasts for a minimum of a weekend. I would say that it should eventually be a five-day lab." ~ Richard Lear, Theatre Faculty Member

"The Restorative Theatre Training Method is exactly what we need to implement in our program to be the change agents for the theater community." - Allison, Ognibene, Theatre Professor

"Thank you for inviting me to the Restorative Theatre Training Method Workshop! It was very insightful to see the other side from a educators point of view and I’m glad more initiative is being taken to facilitate community and change" - Sussex County Community College Theatre Student Graduate

"I love the homespace you create for your students. It really is the process that engages student learning and growth. I also left reflecting on how college faculty truly learn from our courageous students." - Rich Linden, Psychology Professor

6 Tenets of Theatre as HomePlace:

The foundational philosophy of the Restorative Theatre Training Method is that all theatre spaces function as a temporary homeplace: a site of resistance.

I draw inspiration from activist, author and Black feminist bell hooks’ 1991 essay HomePlace: a Site of Resistance.

hooks links the liberatory practices of Black women expressed through domesticity and the creation of home spaces as being foundational and integral to Black liberation.

Theatre spaces are akin to homeplace as resistance when viewed through the lens of the liberatory principles found in hooks’ essay acknowledging and affirming the value and necessity of place/space making.

However, theatre training and performance spaces are often viewed through a nostalgic-false-idealized lens of “theatre spaces and theatre people are safe spaces and/or “theatre is home to everyone.”

The lack of awareness and acknowledgement that neither of these views are accurate is what positions theatre practitioners, academics and audiences to accept and perpetuate the kinds of dehumanization and harm that have historically been viewed as the status quo in collegiate and professional theatre!

I created the 6 Tenets of Theatre as HomePlace to help academics and professional peers to initiate new ways of being and knowing that create the kinds of training programs, spaces and environments that position theatre as both physical and philosophical.

I invite you to engage with and reflect on the 6 Tenets of Theatre as HomePlace. Perhaps it’s time for a pivot towards employing these tenets to transform your sites of gathering for theatre making, training and performance and allow theatre spaces to be what they really are: sites of resistance.

Theatre is...

A temporary space curated to resist dominant social paradigms which exploit hierarchal structures that marginalize, disconnect us from our humanity and perpetuate acceptance of harm as de facto in the professional theatre industry.
A space designed to support and protect the wellbeing of human beings engaged in the collective act of using creative, intellectual, mental, psychological and physical labor.
A space where competition is decommissioned and belonging is prioritized. People relax into their identities, embody their dignity, and affirm an individual sense of self and a collective power.
A space grounded in individual and collective agency, agreement and accountability.
A space where participants honor the boundaries necessary for individual and collective curiosity, experimentation, making discoveries and implementation.
A space where cultural competency is employed and protected. Where cultural knowledge is shared in service to the work and humanity

Publications, Facilitation & Other Projects...

HBCU Theater Training as a Case Study for Restorative Justice, Well-Being, and Institutional Practices

I'm so proud to have submitted my recent co-authored article for peer review, "HBCU Theater Training as a Case Study for Restorative Justice, Well-Being, and Institutional Practices” for the International Journal of Restorative Justice! 🎊🎉🎊

My co-author, Kiyaana Cox Jones, is a brilliant social scientist currently with the International Institute for Restorative Practices Graduate School and I had the privilege of having her as a student in the early part of my 27 year career teaching theory, acting, and playwriting at Howard University!

My research initiative the Restorative Theatre Performance Project (RTPP), is a collaborative theatre arts-based research initiative that employs restorative practices to build bridges between theatre, culture and science to engender social change. Having the opportunity to write about the application of the research with Howard students is a highlight of my academic career!

Once published I will share the links here on my site.

Restorative Theatre Training Method, in ACTION!

Last week I led two amazing Restorative Theatre Training Method workshops, training the theatre faculty and staff and in a separate workshop I trained theatre students from Sussex County Community College to help them reimagine their training process for actors, crew and production staff to improve learning outcomes and student experience.

The Restorative Theatre Training Method (RTTM) is an intervention created to reimagine existing academic theatre training processes with techniques informed by restorative practices. This method sits comfortably alongside the practical skills based training used by colleges and universities to prepare students for performance, administrative and technical job opportunities.

RTTM was inspired by the #MeToo movement (2017) and the #WeSeeYouWhiteTheatre movement (2020). It adds to the existing initiatives that focus on harm reduction like Intimacy Coordinators and Directors by engaging the methodology of restorative practices to help theatre leaders and practitioners move away from a culture that centers a competitive and punitive hierarchical power structure and move towards eradicating the perpetuation of harmful industry practices which remain pervasive in audition, rehearsal and performance.

During both workshop sessions, "Reimagining Theatre Training Models: Centering Care, Restoration and Rigor" the faculty, staff and students learned techniques to:

1. Build Authentic Community

2. Create Agency, Agreements & Accountability

3. Relational Work Through Circles

4. Increase Wellbeing & Alleviate Stress Overload

If you'd like this one of a kind transformative professional development training for faculty/staff and students in your theatre department I'd be happy to oblige!

#RestorativeTheatre #RestorativePedagogy #RestorativePractices #Wellbeing

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