Expanding Diverse Storytelling in Museums
Thursday, July 6, 2023 12:00PM – 1:00PM

Storytelling and theater in Museums oftentimes sits within the ancillary offerings, but how can these mediums of personal narrative be folded into the essential inquiry of our institutions? In this panel discussion we will explore how interdisciplinary creative inquiry is able to break barriers to allow visitors to engage authentically with Museums.

Moderator: David Burton, Director, Grace Hudson Museum

Panelists: Ilana Gustafson, Public Events Specialist, California Institute of Technology; Corey Madden, Executive Director, Monterey Museum of Art; DeLanna Studi, Artistic Director of Native Voices, Autry Museum of the American West

David Burton recently celebrated his 25th anniversary as a museum professional, thirteen of those in senior management and executive leadership. Prior to becoming the director of the Grace Hudson Museum in 2017, he led the Yakima Valley Museum in Yakima, Washington, and before that spent 16½ years in progressively senior roles at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, including six years as director of government affairs and over five years as senior director of the Autry’s research institute. At the Autry, David helped start and served as managing director of Native Voices at the Autry, the only Equity theatre company in the United States devoted solely to developing and producing plays by Native American and First Nations playwrights — it is now in its 23rd year. He currently sits on the board of the California Association of Museums, chairing its Governance Committee, and he is a founding board member of the Greater Ukiah Business and Tourism Alliance.

Ilana Gustafson (Public Events Specialist, California Institute of Technology) is an interdisciplinary theater artist and educator with over 20  years experience creating performances and events that aim to foster meaningful connections to this planet and one another. She spent 14 years with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, most recently as Senior Manager of Performing Arts. One of the pillars of the Performing Arts program, Dinosaur Encounters, has been awarded a grant from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs for 5 years in a row. She served on the board of the International Museum Theater Alliance and as a member of the Leadership Team for the Empowerment Congress Arts and Culture Committee for Los Angeles County’s Second Supervisorial District. She served as an advisor for a National Science Foundation grant to create a “theatrical game to teach evolution in a museum setting”. She very recently joined the world-renowned science and engineering institute, Caltech, as the Public Events Specialist. Through a practice of interdisciplinary inquiry, her work at Caltech, NHMLA, and beyond aims to connect folks through shared experiences; she is especially passionate about cross-cultural-discipline collaboration and making science accessible for the general public.

Corey Madden’s unconventional museum career began at age 11 when she spent Spring Break “working” at her mother’s office at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. It continues today at the Monterey Museum of Art where she is delighted to help re-imagine the museum’s programming and its’ historic location. In the intervening decades, Corey became an out-of-the- ordinary theatre artist who was also drawn into museums to collaborate with curators, artists, scientists, and designers to re-imagine the visitor experience. As a result, over 20 years Corey has created live performances and installations; consulted on program and exhibition design, and advised on strategic and architectural planning for the Getty Museum and Villa, LA County Museum of Art, MOCA, LACE, Autry Museum of the American West, NC Museum of Art, and since August 2020 for the Monterey Museum of Art.

DeLanna Studi (she/hers) is a Cherokee actor/playwright whose TV credits include Dreamkeeper, Edge of America, Shameless, General Hospital, Z Nation, Goliath, and Reservation Dogs. Her theater credits include the First National Broadway Tour of August: Osage County, Off-Broadway's Informed Consent, and Gloria: A Life. She retraced her family's footsteps along the Trail of Tears with her father and wrote her play And So We Walked. She has created plays for Theatre for One, The Theatre Center, and Period Piece.  She is the Chair of SAG-AFTRA's National Native Americans Committee, the Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry, and a 2022 United States Artist Fellow. Instagram@DeLannaStudi

This event is part of CAM's Lunch & Learn free webinar series. Please contact Jennifer Caballero, Executive Director, if you would like to sponsor this event. Click here to learn more about Lunch & Learn sponsorship.

Accessibility
Closed captioning will be provided. 

Connection Instructions
Registrants will be emailed connection instructions 24 hours in advance.

Questions
If you have questions about the program, registration, or connecting to the webinar, please contact Rochelle Hoffman, Program Manager, at [email protected]