#hEALMETOO FESTIVAL HOME > growing wild

#HealMeToo Festival & Podcast Present: Growing Wild

Broadway’s Shona Tucker (To Kill a Mockingbird) will perform her lyrical solo play with live music, Growing Wild, about a family's inter-generational quest to heal from the trauma of a mysterious sex crime. Directed by Elizabeth Van Dyke with live music by Jack Gulielmetti on guitar.

Stage Manager: Tonya Ingerson
Producer: Allison Taaffe
Scenographer: Pedro Augusto Lima
Costume Designer: Enrique Reynoso
Dramaturg: Yvette Ganier

This play was underwritten by The Susan Turner Fund and Vassar College

Special Thanks: Sandra Daley and Liberation Theater Company, Joan Gerardi, Lindsay Matheos and Philip Macaluso (for their stage management assistance), Abigail Goldman, Allison Breeze, Charles Randolph-Wright, Barak Tucker, Tyrone Simpson, Jessie Tucker, Donna Worthington, Charisse LeMaster, YARA Arts Group, Half Moon Theater Company, and ACT San Francisco.

SHONA TUCKER is currently performing on Broadway in the critically-acclaimed production of To Kill a Mockingbird, a new play based on the timeless novel by Harper Lee. She recently performed in Yale Repertory Theatre's Mary Jane by Amy Herzog. Her Off-Broadway credits include: New York Theater Workshop, Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, The Public Theater, Circle in the Square, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, and La MaMa, e.t.c. She has worked at numerous regional theaters, including three years as a company member at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Williamstown Theater Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville, Stageworks/Hudson, Arena Stage, The Acting Company, Hartford Stage and American Conservatory Theater. Her television and film credits include: “Lights Out”, WALK THE FISH, “Preaching to the Choir: On the One,” Third Watch , New York Undercover, and Law and Order.  She is a Usual Suspect with New York Theatre Workshop, an Audelco Award winner, and Fulbright Scholar. BS from Northwestern University and MFA at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. She is an Associate Professor of Drama and Chair of the Drama Department at Vassar College.  

ELIZABETH VAN DYKE is a New York based award winning Director. Her directorial credits include: BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK; A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS (Ct. Rep); ABIGAIL 1702 (SUNY Purchase); BLOOD; UNTAMED: BODY, HAIR, ATTITUDE at the National Black Theatre, THE TALK and LEARNING TO SWIM at The Ensemble Studio Theatre; THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS MAN-ON-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS (School House Theatre(, RADIO GOLF, GEM OF THE OCEAN (SUPERIOR AWARD from Ass. Of Colleges, Seminole State Univ.) THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL (Giorgee Award, Best Director), GEE’S BEND, A RAISIN IN THE SUN, WAITING TO BE INVITED (Ensemble Theatre, Houston); THE PIANO LESSON (Carnegie Mellon); SOPHISTICATED LADIES, (ONYX AWARD BEST DIRECTOR & BEST MUSICAL PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR, KUNTU Rep., Pitts.), THE OLD SETTLER (The Invisible Theatre, Tucson);, SWEET MAMA STRINGBEAN, GREAT MEN OF GOSPEL: SPIRIT INTO SOUND (AUDELCO NOMINATION, Best Director) and REMEMBERING WE SELVES: THE BLACK RENAISSANCE by the late Amiri Baraka at New Federal Theatre.

Ms. Van Dyke sits on the boards of New Federal Theatre & The League of Professional Theatre Women. She is a member of the National Theatre Conference, EST, a Usual Suspect at NYTW, the Actors’ Center, and SDC.

#HealMeToo Podcast Ep. 11

We often focus--rightly--on the needs of victims and survivors. But "Secondary Survivors" are the supporters and loved ones of any victim of sexual violence, who may themselves become traumatized. In this episode, we focus on the healing needs of everyone around the victim, to recognize and understand how sexual violence impacts #FamiliesToo. 

#HealMeToo Festival hit show Growing Wild, created and performed by Broadway's Shona Tucker, tells the story of a family's inter-generational quest to heal from the trauma of a mysterious sex crime. Hear Shona share in-depth with expert family therapist Fiona True of the Ackerman Institute for the Family, about different ways the members of her family have been impacted by the murder of her older sister, a victim of organized crime, while employed in sex work. Fiona shares insights about the work families can do to heal, foster resilience, and become a resource for each other.

The #HealMeToo Podcast is hosted by Hope Singsen--the artist, creativity researcher and survivor-activist who founded the #HealMeToo Festival in NYC this Spring. 

The recording facilities and engineer for this episode were provided through the generous support of Fr. James Hauver, Pastor of St. Columba Church, and Fr. Walter Niebrzydowski of The Fr. Walter Outreach, inc., a nonprofit organization working to repair the effects of sexual violence and gender oppression. You can learn more about their mission to promote the true, the good, and the beautiful through spirituality, media, and technology at fatherwaltersparish.org.

Recorded & Engineered by Corey Kaup
Edited by Hope Singsen
Music performed by Micah Burgess:
If I Can by Hope Singsen & Dillon Kondor
Rockabye by Hope Singsen, Dillon Kondor & Micah Burgess
Gorgeous Fire by Hope Singsen & Dillon Kondor

Podcast Guest Bios

Shona Tucker is currently performing on Broadway in the critically-acclaimed production of To Kill a Mockingbird, a new play based on the timeless novel by Harper Lee. She recently performed in Yale Repertory Theatre's Mary Jane by Amy Herzog. Her Off-Broadway credits include: New York Theater Workshop, Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, The Public Theater, Circle in the Square, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, and La MaMa, e.t.c. She has worked at numerous regional theaters, and has many television and film credits, which you can read on the detail page for this episode of the podcast, at bit.ly/hm2-010. And Shona is an Associate Professor of Drama and Chair of the Drama Department at Vassar College.

Shona’s solo play with music, Growing Wild, a hit at the #HealMeToo Festival, is about a family's inter-generational quest to heal from the trauma of a mysterious sex crime.

Fiona True LCSW is a member of the senior teaching faculty of the Ackerman Institute for the Family. She is Co-Director of the Center for Children and Relational Trauma, a clinical research program that has addressed issues of family violence and relational trauma since 1992. She has authored several papers on the subject of intra-familial sexual abuse and the clinical methodology, which the center developed, to address the dilemmas and impasses that this set of presenting problems generates.

She directed the Ackerman’s International and Community training programs for twelve years, developing programs in Hong Kong, Argentina, Chile and Japan. She regularly consults and trains in community mental health agencies and providers of residential care. She has presented the work of the Center both internationally and within the United States. She maintains private practices in both New York City and Connecticut. 

She was the recipient of the American Family Therapy Association (AFTA) Award for Contribution to Theory and Practice, together with Marcia Sheinberg and Peter Fraenkel in 2004.