Charisse Brown

"Through the dramatic roles and worlds that are available vicariously in theatre and directly in process drama, we can learn both who we are and what we may be. It is this that makes the essential nature of both theatre and process drama profoundly educational" - Cecily O'Neill  (one of my favorite quotes! :-)   Hi!  I'm Charisse Brown. I am the Founder and Artistic Director of Curtsey & a Bow: Arts-in-Education Workshops.   I also facilitate drama-based workshops via teaching residencies throughout Westchester and New York City in schools; community centers/after-school programs and long-term, intensive curriculum-integrated school residencies.  Her students also include: at-risk youth, incarcerated teens, students with mental health and chemical dependency issues (both adult and children), and senior citizens.  Along with several Westchester and NYC public and private schools, my clients include: Woodfield Detention Center, Valhalla; St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison; Clear View Day School, Briarcliff Manor;  Westhab sites in both White Plains and Mt. Vernon; and Wildcat Academy in the Bronx, just to name a few.  My workshops focus on enhancing literacy skills, as well as social skills such as: conflict resolution; building empathy, being responsible for one’s actions, forgiveness, facing one’s fears, etc., as well as artistic skills such as playwriting; blocking; how to handle a script and props; voice projection techniques; and all aspects of putting together a performance.   I'm  a member of the Screen Actors Guild, as well as the Actors Equity Association, and have appeared on network television shows such as Law & Order, and in regional and Off-Broadway shows such as “The Vagina Monologues,” “A Lesson Before Dying,” and “You Shouldn’t Have Told.”  I have also performed at the American Repertory Theater in The Netherlands where I lived for several years. There, I performed as Hanna Mae in “A Coupla Chicks Sitting Around Talking," an adaptation of John Ford Noonan’s “A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking.”   I also perform “living portrayals” of Madam C.J. Walker, Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer in my “Women in History” series in which I educate through dramatic performance.  I am currently a Masters degree candidate at New York University, studying Drama Therapy (2013).   "The school of the future will, perhaps, not be a school as we understand it—with benches, blackboards, and a teacher’s platform—it may be a theatre, a library, a museum, or a conversation." —Leo Tolstoy (my other favorite quote!) :)

Masters, New York University, New York, New York, Drama Therapy (Candidate, 2013) Bachelor of Arts, Howard University, Washington, DC, Sociology National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, Washington, DC SAG Conservatory, Washington, DC Substitute teacher, White Plains School District