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[0:03] Ruthie Fierberg: In 2014, I saw the Broadway production of Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Disgraced. The play honestly rocked me, and I don't think it's hyperbolic to say it changed my life, or at the very least, the way I understand theater. My brain spun as I digested what I had seen on stage. I needed to unpack this. My name is Ruthie Fierberg. And that night at the theater was when I realized these artists are only starting the conversation. They're placing the ball center court, and we're not picking up the ball. Well, it's time to pick up the ball. It's time to continue the conversation. Now I like to think of theater not just as a place or a presentation, but as an action. To theater is to engage with art presented on stage, to lean in as stories reflect society and humanity, to listen as artists question that reality, and most crucially, to grapple with those queries and seek answers in order to change our world.

The curtain call of a play or musical is not the end of the experience. It's the beginning. Why We Theater is a podcast at the intersection of theater and social justice. In the first half of each episode, we confront the issues that playwrights, directors, and theater makers raise in their works with those artists. And in the second half, we add in a panel of experts, people who do the work on the ground, in order to help us wrestle towards answers and provide actionable steps we can take in our own lives to produce tangible change. Whether it's an organization to follow or support, a petition to sign, guidelines about the appropriate language to use around certain issues, a way to gain self-awareness about personal biases, Why We Theater will give you the tools.

This podcast is a forum, a place to instigate meaningful discussion with artists and activists and hope you too will continue the conversation. I believe in theater's power to create change. I believe that hearts and minds demand change in our laws and policies, not the other way around. And hearts and minds change when we cultivate empathy, when we consider alternative perspectives, when we commune, when we talk, and when we listen. I hope you'll join me, your host, as we debate, celebrate, and explore why We Theater.