WHEN THE SYSTEM SWALLOWS YOU
Trenda Loftin

"When The System Swallows You" is a performance piece written by Trenda Loftin, using memoir and research techniques to examine the ways incarceration affects whole families. While originally produced in April of 2012 as a way to process her brother's continued incarceration, this piece unfortunately continues to be too relevant. Mass incarceration and the criminalization of youth of color are issues many of us know too well. This piece provides just a glimpse into what can happen when one is born into the system.
Greenfield Community Television |  March 2016
The Elm Street Think Tank, made up of community members & residents of the Franklin County House of Corrections, is rehearsing for its first theater piece, a staged reading of a play written by a local teacher.
Video

​Common Good Reads |  March 2016
Mass Humanities
The Daily Hampshire Gazette | March 2019
​The Valley Advocate | March 2019
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(In)Dependent: The Heroin Project
Emilia Sherin & Zach Manthey

(IN)Dependent: The Heroin Project is a drama by Kent State University students Emelia Sherin and Zach Manthey, is based on interviews with heroin users, counselors, and family members. It exposes the reality of the heroin crisis, and captures the physical, mental, and emotional issues that people who have experienced opioid misuse disorder, friends, families, nurses, policemen, and children undergo from primary and secondary interaction with heroin. The Academy of Music Theatre will partner with Hampshire HOPE, a multi-sector opioid coalition in Northampton, to raise awareness about Opioid misuse disorder, reduce stigma, and elevate the voices of those who are oppressed; to provide a deeper, more meaningful community engagement process which allows us to better understand the experiences of those impacted by Opioid misuse disorder.

24 Hour Theatre Project (Northampton, MA)

​Inspired simply by 3 actor profiles and the mandatory line "How long can it last," Trenda wrote the 10 minute play "Flicker" that explores connection and disconnection between 3 sets of neighbors in an apartment building, their connections to work and family, routine and disruption. In just under 12 hours! Find out her
pre-writing thoughts by clicking the links below.

DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE 
VALLEY ADVOCATE

LEGAL TENDER: Women and the Secret Life of Money
Christian McEwen

Legal Tender: Women & The Secret Life of Money Legal Tender is a play written by Christian McEwen and directed by Melissa Redwin. It is about women’s relationship to women, based on live interviews with fifty different women.
Daily Hampshire Gazette |  March 2014
A role that mirrors life: Trenda Loftin's theater artist story.

Daily Hampshire Gazette |  March 2014
​Money stories: Northampton writer's project probes women's troubled financial lives.

Northampton Community Television |  March 2014
Legal Tender Preview

HAND GRENADES
Monica Shea Giordano

​The relationship between Diana and Ophelia is based on small things: days and phrases and little looks. But it is all of those small things that create a big thing: Love. When another big thing  (Tragedy) affects Ophelia, Ophelia seeks comfort in silence, and Diana seeks comfort in Troy. 

Hand Grenades is about holding on, the ways in which we love, and the ways in which we leave.
The Ithacan |  April 2014
Hand Grenades: First Ithaca Fringe Show Rocks

FLIRTING WITH DANGER: Power & Choice in Heterosexual Relationships
Lynn Phillips, Sut Jhally & Andrew Killoy

Social and developmental psychologist and author Lynn Phillips explores the line between consent and coercion in this thought-provoking look at popular culture and the ways real girls and women navigate their heterosexual relationships and hookups. Featuring dramatizations of interviews that Phillips conducted with hundreds of young women, the film examines how the wider culture's frequently contradictory messages about pleasure, danger, agency, and victimization enter into women's most intimate relationships with men. The result is a refreshingly candid, and nuanced, look at how young women are forced to grapple with deeply ambivalent cultural attitudes about female sexuality. Essential for courses that look at popular culture, gender norms, sexuality, and sexual violence.
Media Education Foundation
Preview and/or Purchase Film  |  

Mass Live  |  April 2012
Film 'Flirting with Danger' looks at sexual violence in young women's relationships
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