Women' s issue the
Anita Woodley
Health Educator and Founder of Anita Wood ley Productions Formerly an Emmy award-winning journalist, Anita now uses theater to educate people about health issues and disparities. Her repertoire of 15 shows deals with everything from breast cancer and obesity to selfesteem and conflict resolution. She performs her onewoman show at various Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools through The ArtsCenter’s Arts in Schools program and is a teaching artist-in-residence for the Durham Arts Council’s Creative Arts in Public & Private Schools (CAPS) program. Anita lives in Chapel Hill with husband Wes and son Xavier, 15.
You use humor to educate people about serious health issues. Why do you think it works so well? “Humor opens people up. The very physics of laughter forces one to curl the corners of the mouth, stretch the lips until they open, part the teeth revealing the inside of the mouth and during a really deep releasing laugh, exercise the throat muscles. This act releases, creates space and allows new experiences to come in.” Tell me about a memorable response to one of your plays. “The most memorable response was to my show ‘Mama Juggs: The Breast Health Education Show.’ A day prior to the show, I did a meditative prayer, asking my mama what else I could add to her character’s story to benefit the audience. My mama died at 47 years old because of ignorance, the lack of health literacy. She was too afraid to go back to the doctor’s office when they discovered she had a lump under her arm. I heard her say, ‘Teach them how I changed [the dressing on] my breast wound from the cancer.’ I went to CVS and bought all the supplies, adding this intimate and stirring ritual to my performance. I even had an audience member come up to assist with the tape, as I used to while [my mama] dressed her wound. At the end of the show, a woman emotionally approached me. She said, ‘Thank you for showing me what to expect. The doctors told me I would have to change my chest when they removed my breast, but I had no idea they meant all that with draining included. I thought it meant a Band-Aid. You have no idea how you’ve helped me to go back to the doctor for this mastectomy.’ It touched me so much because I listened to my intuition and a need was served.” –Holly West 40
chapelhillmagazine.com May/June 2018