Larraine Brown is a writer, storyteller, theater activist and community builder.
She began her studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music and Drama in Toronto and then performed in London, England as a member of the Tavistock Players.
Larraine draws on her studies with artists, performers, spiritual teachers, activist innovators, including revolutionary Brazilian director Augusto Boal, Mahayana Yoga and Zen Master Bo In Lee, David Diamond’s Theatre for Living and renowned NYC acting coach Deena Levy. Early in her career she worked with Alinsky trained organizers using a variety of tools including art, theater, and story to create a vibrant and effective alternative ‘community’ government in Riverdale, one of Toronto’s poorest and most crime ridden neighbourhoods.
She has facilitated several collaborative experimental theater and writing projects throughout the country and was a member/facilitator of the Brecht Forum’s ‘TOPLab’ collective based in New York city.
Larraine founded and produced the international playwriting competition, and 15 Minute Theater Festival, formerly based in coastal Maine. She worked with several hundred actors, technicians, directors and local volunteers, along with award winning playwrights and performers, and dozens of new plays from around the world, to attract more than 3000 people annually to this original theater experience.
While she was a staff member at WERU radio Larraine created ‘The Spoken Word, a weekly half hour show that celebrated language, poetry, story and theater.
She directed the improv team ‘Playing in Traffic’ and ‘The OutCast Players’ – a group of adults who regularly performed around the state at libraries, annual prison and education conferences, for state legislative bodies, the Governor, the general public - for the purpose of illustrating the lives of those who are faced with poverty and literacy challenges. She has directed many plays and her own play ‘Secrets’, about the price of keeping political and personal secrets, won a Perishable Theater award, and was performed around New England.
Larraine works with social justice activists, artists, story tellers, performers, and groups to explore creative process, and to achieve, their most passionately held goals.
She began her studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music and Drama in Toronto and then performed in London, England as a member of the Tavistock Players.
Larraine draws on her studies with artists, performers, spiritual teachers, activist innovators, including revolutionary Brazilian director Augusto Boal, Mahayana Yoga and Zen Master Bo In Lee, David Diamond’s Theatre for Living and renowned NYC acting coach Deena Levy. Early in her career she worked with Alinsky trained organizers using a variety of tools including art, theater, and story to create a vibrant and effective alternative ‘community’ government in Riverdale, one of Toronto’s poorest and most crime ridden neighbourhoods.
She has facilitated several collaborative experimental theater and writing projects throughout the country and was a member/facilitator of the Brecht Forum’s ‘TOPLab’ collective based in New York city.
Larraine founded and produced the international playwriting competition, and 15 Minute Theater Festival, formerly based in coastal Maine. She worked with several hundred actors, technicians, directors and local volunteers, along with award winning playwrights and performers, and dozens of new plays from around the world, to attract more than 3000 people annually to this original theater experience.
While she was a staff member at WERU radio Larraine created ‘The Spoken Word, a weekly half hour show that celebrated language, poetry, story and theater.
She directed the improv team ‘Playing in Traffic’ and ‘The OutCast Players’ – a group of adults who regularly performed around the state at libraries, annual prison and education conferences, for state legislative bodies, the Governor, the general public - for the purpose of illustrating the lives of those who are faced with poverty and literacy challenges. She has directed many plays and her own play ‘Secrets’, about the price of keeping political and personal secrets, won a Perishable Theater award, and was performed around New England.
Larraine works with social justice activists, artists, story tellers, performers, and groups to explore creative process, and to achieve, their most passionately held goals.