MEET THE STAFF
Michelle Cruz
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
T
rinity Rep’s Director of Community Engagement since 2018, Michelle Cruz cultivates partnerships with community organizations, produces community-based events, helps shape our seasons, teaches classes… and the list goes on! I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Michelle so we could get to know her even better. Bradly Widener: You worked at Trinity Rep as a receptionist from 2004 to 2007. What was it like coming back over ten years later and moving into such a different role? Michelle Cruz: It was very strange! Before I found the Director of Community Engagement job, it felt like, what do I do now? Do I move? What am I doing here? Do I give back somehow? What am I doing with my life right now? I was actually looking into moving to Nashville, TN to pursue more music, delve into a new community, and make an impact in a different state. Then, I saw this job and said this is exactly what I need to do, and I hope I get this. My first inclination was thinking of myself as the eight-year-old who saw A Christmas Carol through Project Discovery. That was my first experience with theater, and I remember Tim Crowe as Scrooge. Even now, I still look at him like, “Wow, Tim Crowe!” That little kid still comes out. It was clear that it was time to stay and make an impact here in Rhode Island, my community. BW: What does it really mean to be the Director of Community Engagement at Trinity Rep? MC: I think it means a lot of things. There is so much about my job that deals with access. Before becoming the Director of Community Engagement, I worked with Farm Fresh Rhode Island and headed up both the wintertime farmers market and the downtown farmers market on Tuesdays. I knew a lot of the faces in Kennedy Plaza. I was also emceeing the Burnside Music Series on Thursdays, and I would see a lot of the same folks again. They would recognize me and ask, “Hey, can I come into the park?” That was so striking to me because they no longer felt like that place was for them. At Trinity Rep, I think about what it is going to take for people to actually open that door and feel welcome here. You can walk past Trinity Rep all the time, but not feel compelled and safe and inspired to go in. I still remember my first time at the Project Discovery student matinee as a kid, and there’s this giant lobby, and it’s beautiful but it’s a little scary! When I was hired, I started going to our neighbors to talk about what their access was to us. I was thinking about all the different perceptions that people have about Trinity Rep. How are we reaching out to them? Have they ever been here? Are there programs here for them? I invited former Providence mayoral candidate Kobi Dennis to come talk to the Radio Golf cast since there were so many parallels between the Pittsburgh Hill District in the play and gentrified neighborhoods in Providence (Southside and Fox Point, for example) and Dennis’ own mayoral race. He and Radio Golf’s Harmon Wilkes both aspired to be the first Black mayors of their cities. I wanted to make those connections with our audience that art does indeed imitate life here, especially in that particular production. Kobi headed up an amazing program called Princes to Kings, just being a father figure to 13-18-year-old boys of color from Providence, and he said, “You know, the kids would see
ABOVE LEFT: Michelle Cruz; ABOVE: Community engagement events organized around Trinity Rep’s 2020 production of August Wilson’s Radio Golf included a talkback featuring (l to r) Magelia Babatunde Perez Akinjobi from DARE, Dr. Claire Andrade-Watkins from the Fox Point Cape Verdean Heritage Place/SPIA Media, NAACP President Jim Vincent, and Terri Wright from DARE, as well as a classic Sunday Dinner held in Trinity Rep’s scenery shop.
THE TRINITY SQUARE • SPRING 2021
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