The Department of Theatre invites you to a workshop with Bliss Griffin, former National Diversity and Inclusion Strategist at Actors’ Equity Association.

In this interactive workshop theatre practitioners will explore how stereotype and bias influence storytelling structure in the entertainment industry and how counteract their negative impacts with a deeper understanding of a basic and universal story-telling tool: archetype. Producers and educators will leave with the tools to counteract implicit bias in programming and casting to tell deeply inclusive stories. Actors will leave with a strategy for identifying and developing their specialty and selling their work to the industry across all genres and media.

The workshop will be 3 Hours in length (including breaks).

Bliss Griffin’s consulting practice is driven by a deep belief that the societal benefit of art is immeasurable. Too often, however, we value the art above the artist, trading their safety and well-being for our own entertainment. That model is truly untenable, and Bliss is committed to creating an arts & entertainment industry culture that uplifts artists in their employment relationships.

Bliss is the immediate past National Diversity and Inclusion Strategist at Actors’ Equity Association, the labor union representing over fifty thousand stage actors and stage managers. She directed all D&I initiatives and serve as an internal consultant to ensure that all of Equity’s activities are truly inclusive and foster a sense of belonging among those who are systemically marginalized. 

Bliss holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Miami and spent the first decade of her career as a theatre actor, earning union membership playing Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and winning a 2015 Philadelphia Barrymore Award for her in the original cast of Little Rock, a docudrama recounting the integration of Little Rock Central High School.She holds an MBA in Management and Leadership from Fordham University, Gabelli School of Business. During that time she served as Gabelli’s Inaugural Fellow for Diversity and Inclusion, and establish the Human Resources/PeopleOperations function of an NYC tech start up. Today Bliss continues her studies as an JD candidate in the evening student at Fordham School of Law focusing on labor and employment, discrimination, and entertainment law. 

When she is not in the home office or classroom, she’s inhaling true crime podcasts, cultivating a green thumb, and training her four-legged friend Quimbee. Bliss now directs her creative impulse toward home renovation. Should she mention throw pillows or quartz countertops, please do not encourage her.