Arts Educators Save the World

Arts Educators Save the World

ARTS EDUCATORS SAVE THE WORLD is a new weekly podcast that brings successful artists together in conversation with their mentors. Season One guests include Lin-Manuel Miranda, Robert Lopez, Josh Radnor, Annaleigh Ashford, and more. Follow the show on Twitter @artseducators, on IG @artseducatorspodcast, and learn more at www.ArtsEducatorsPodcast.com. Subscribe today to be inspired by how these educators and mentors changed the lives of the artists... that change our worlds.

Episodes

LIVE! From NCECA! In SLC!

April 21, 2025 • 58 mins
Live! from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts it’s AESTW!!! Erica and Alek traveled to Salt Lake City for a live recording at the NCECA conference with VETART Executive Director Steve Dilley and ceramicist and navy veteran Reggie Stites. Our audience was moved by Reggie’s story of transformation and identity-making through ceramics… and now you can bear witness!
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Blue Sky Episode Swap!

April 7, 2025 • 58 mins
Dropping in our feed today is an episode from our friends at Blue Sky. Bill Burke and the Optimism Institute host conversations about positivity, including this gem with Vanessa Cooksey about her optimistic take on the future of the arts, the vital role that artists play in our communities, the joys of arts education. Onward together!
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L. Steven Taylor & Dr. Lisa Mitchell

March 25, 2025 • 71 mins
On today’s episode we journey through the amazing arts education program Disney Musicals in Schools with Broadway star L. Steven Taylor (Mufasa in "The Lion King") and Dr. Lisa Mitchell (Director of Education, Disney Theatricals). This team of artists and educators works in elementary schools across the US to bring musical theatre joy to students everywhere!
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Erica & Alek Chat #3

March 14, 2025 • 38 mins
Part 3 of our ongoing mini-series "Erica & Alek Chats," where our hosts take a deep dive into a specific aspect of arts learning-and-teaching from Erica's book, How the Arts Can Save Education.
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Who ARTed? Episode Swap!

March 3, 2025 • 14 mins
In this episode, we're sharing a story from our friend Kyle Wood, host of the delightful podcast "Who ARTed?" Kyle is a National Board Certified Teacher with 17 years experience in public schools, and his show is meant to be accessible for anyone interested in art with a focus on fun facts that are appropriate for listeners of all ages, so it's totally safe to listen with your kids! Katsushika Hokusai is best known for The Great Wa...
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Loren Hammonds & Warrington Hudlin

February 19, 2025 • 71 mins
Sometimes, the most compelling mentorship relationships are mutual – where the student has as much to give as the teacher. In this wide-ranging conversation, Warrington Hudlin, founder of the Black Filmmakers of America and Loren Hammonds, head of documentary for Time Studios, talk about the importance of community and showing up for one another, and their mutual love for virtual reality and immersive filmmaking. These two are chan...
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Shaina Taub & Jeanine Tesori

February 10, 2025 • 75 mins
Holy moly, it's a great day indeed when you get to talk with, not one, but two of the greatest living composers of musical theatre and opera!! On today’s episode, we talk with 2024 Tony Award-winner Shaina Taub and her mentor, Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeanine Tesori about critique, the importance of community, and, of course, mentorship. Even Alek was moved by our conversation, so you know we were onto something here!!
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Story Pirates Episode Swap!

January 30, 2025 • 41 mins
This week we're sharing an episode from our friends at The Story Pirates. In it, a magnetic, musical manatee (John Legend) tries to convince the Story Pirates to form a marching band, but is he really who he says he is? Featuring two new stories: “Butts,” a song about, well, butts, sung by Broadway star F. Michael Haynie and written by Malachy, a 7 year old from Pennsylvania, and “The Audition,” a story about the trials and tribula...
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Parker Esse & Baayork Lee

January 20, 2025 • 66 mins
On today’s episode, we explore the art of choreography with artist Parker Esse and his mentor, the legendary Baayork Lee. We ask "what do you do as an artist when words aren’t enough?" The answer? You dance!!!!
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Erica & Alek Chat #2

January 10, 2025 • 39 mins
It's the second episode in our ongoing mini-series "Erica & Alek Chats," where our hosts take a deep dive into a specific aspect of arts learning-and-teaching from Erica's book, How the Arts Can Save Education.
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Aaron Bossen & Helen Lee (Happy New Year!)

January 1, 2025 • 68 mins
This episode is for the thinkers! Join glass artist and PhD student in Materials Science Engineering Aaron Bossen and his mentor, Head of the UW-Madison Glass Lab and United States Artists (USA) Fellow Helen Lee as they talk about the art of making glass and making with glass. We dive into the world of conceptual art, and we talk about glass as both a material and a metaphor for life. Enjoy this incredible food for your artist brai...
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Play On Podcasts Episode Swap!

December 22, 2024 • 50 mins
In this episode, we're sharing our pal Michael Goodfriend's conversation with Dorcas Leung, who plays "Juliet" in the Play On Podcasts production of "Romeo and Juliet." Michael and Dorcas are passionate artists and arts educators who talk about everything from representation in the theatre to the power of HS arts education. Find more Play On & Next Chapter podcasts at: https://www.nextchapterpodcasts.com/playonpodcasts And on Appl...
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Erica & Alek Chat #1

December 8, 2024 • 33 mins
This is the first episode in an ongoing mini-series we're calling "Erica & Alek Chats," where our hosts take a deep dive into a specific aspect of arts learning-and-teaching from Erica's book, How the Arts Can Save Education.
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Cody Renard Richard & Carrie Wood

November 30, 2024 • 62 mins
Broadway and TV's finest production stage manager Cody Renard Richard reflects with his HS theatre teacher Carrie Wood about their shared love of stage management, HS theatre, rodeo, and Cody's foundation: The Cody Renard Richard Scholarship Foundation, which supports young technical theatre artists of color. Read about Cody here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/arts/culture-diary-cody-renard-richard.html And follow Cody on IG...
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Carlos Gacharna & Geof Hermann

November 21, 2024 • 63 mins
Multimedia artist, teaching artist, and all around badass Carlos Gacharna talks with his high school ceramics teacher Geof Hermann. They explore how the high school ceramics classroom is a life-saving space for both students and teachers. Follow Carlos on IG here: https://www.instagram.com/caduphoto/?hl=en
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Jonathan Groff & Linda Tough

November 14, 2024 • 66 mins
Broadway's reigning Tony-award winner for Best Actor, Jonathan Groff (Merrily We Roll Along, oh yeah, and Frozen, oh yeah, and Hamilton), and his elementary school music teacher, Linda Tough, talk about music-making, education, and their shared passion for "I Love Lucy."
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WE'RE BACK!!

November 7, 2024 • 1 min
Erica and Alek are back! And from now on, we're gonna be a semi-weekly podcast! New episodes start dropping Nov 14, with none other than Jonathan Groff! Follow the show on Twitter @artseducators, on IG @artseducatorspodcast, and learn more at www.ArtsEducatorsPodcast.com. Subscribe today to be inspired by how these educators and mentors changed the lives of the artists... that change our worlds.
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Top Chef's Valentine Howell, Jr. with... his mother!

April 2, 2024 • 62 mins
So many first-time ingredients to spice up the episode we've whipped up this week: Our FIRST guest from the CULINARY arts... Our FIRST guest co-host who is also an artist in the art form o' the day... and our FIRST guest who has brought along his MOM! A melange of new flavors baked into this week's conversation with 2024 Top Chef-testant CHEF VALENTINE HOWELL, JR, and his mother, STEPHANIE JOACINE, at whose side Val first came to k...
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Bradley Whitford. Yes. Bradley Whitford.

February 5, 2024 • 52 mins
We launched this podcast in Season One with a conversation between Lin-Manuel Miranda, Robert Lopez, and Ms. Barbara Ames, who was not only their mentor (and elementary school music teacher), but Erica's as well. We now end Season Two with Bradley Whitford, whose mentor (and university theater professor) was, in fact, Alek's as well. Bradley Whitford is, of course, a three-time Emmy Award-winner actor, known for his work on THE WES...
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How They Met Each Other: Craig Thomas and Rob Greenberg

January 29, 2024 • 60 mins
Our guests today, working at the highest levels of network television, are proof that the mentorship doesn't end at graduation. Craig Thomas is the co-creator of CBS's smash sitcom HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, which received 30 Emmy Award nominations in its nine-season run. His prose has been published in The Iowa Review, The Boston Globe, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and the Weekly Humorist. He joins us in conversation with Rob Greenber...
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