Last weekend I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. with the other ITO gals for Americans for the Arts' National Arts Advocacy Day. We arrived in Washington on the afternoon of March 6, and met up with Kimberly Staples (ITO mentor) and Diane Carr (EdTA Director of Chapters and Communities) for brunch in a wonderful restaurant called Open City across the street from our B-E-A-UTIFUL hotel, the Omni Shoreham. After brunch, the ITO got a little bit of time to explore the amazing city, and we trekked on the metro to the National Mall.
We had an awesome time going to see all of the monuments we could possibly fit into one afternoon (including our friend Abe here). It was an unforgettable experience.
After we were done exploring, we headed over to a wonderful restaurant called La Tomate for dinner with our EdTA family in Washington D.C. It was great being able to reconnect with everyone before heading to the Advocacy Day training the next day.
The next morning we met bright and early downstairs in the Omni Shoreham and got registered with our individual state delegations. We spent a day learning all about arts advocacy, and heard a bunch of great speakers on topics ranging from arts legislation, to facts and statistics about the benefits of the arts in education and the economy, to the ins and outs of meeting with your state representatives' offices. It was extremely interesting and educational.
One highlight of the day was getting to meet the Democracyworks essay contest winner, Salwa Meghjee, from Florida. Salwa wrote an amazing essay about diversity in arts education, and we found her story to be inspiring and her commentary to be extremely insightful. The ITO gals are so proud to call her and her sister, Samah, our friends after meeting them in Washington D.C. Stay tuned...I get to teach a N.A.P.S. workshop with Salwa at the Florida Thespian Festival this week!
That evening we had the pleasure of attending an Arts Advocacy Day celebration at the Kennedy Center. This was a truly phenomenal experience for us. We saw a fantastic guest speaker, John Maeda, talk about the importance of the inclusion of arts in the STEAM acronym as opposed to just STEM, since the arts provides essential creativity and innovative skills for young professionals. You can watch him give a TED talk
here.
Early the next morning we were up and ready to journey over to Capitol Hill to meet with our states' representatives in the House and the Senate buildings. We first attended an Arts Advocacy Day breakfast and heard a plethora of great speakers as well as some awesome poetry and music. Afterwards, I headed to my meetings with the rest of the California delegation at AAD. Throughout the day, I got to meet with the offices of Senator Barbara Boxer, Representative Juan Vargas, Senator Diane Feinstein, and Representative Steve Knight all from California. Getting to advocate for theatre education in Washington D.C. was absolutely surreal, and it was so inspiring to be able to speak directly with representatives' offices to make a difference by encouraging them to support arts-friendly legislation.
After our meetings were all over, the ITO gals headed back to the Omni Shoreham hotel before heading to the airport to catch our flights home. It was a bittersweet goodbye, as we won't see one another again until ITF in Lincoln this June; we are still so excited to Act, Share, and Repeat with everyone this summer!