Where Officers and Community Create Art
Watch the latest performance here
In 2015, Irondale invited the New York Police Department to join them in developing a community program that would use theatrical improvisation to build communication and empathy between officers and the communities they are charged to protect and serve. In 2021, Irondale’s unique theatre workshop and performance for bridging differences, confronting complexity and rediscovering our shared humanity resumes this season!
Our ninth and all-new ensemble cast of community members and police officers will join founding members and facilitators Terry Greiss, Rivka Rivera and Michael-David Gordon for 10 weeks of improvisational training, in which they learn and apply the tools of the actor to be heard, bear witness to others’ perspectives, and spotlight needed change.
Always professionally facilitated and undeniably FUN, TPSU welcomes all viewpoints. New York City police officers participate on duty time, but this workshop and all content is created exclusively by the unique casts and the Irondale Ensemble Project.
Over a period of ten weeks, seven officers and seven community members come together to eat, talk, and play together. They learn to improvise, tell their own stories, and “step into each other’s shoes.” The workshops culminate in original and spontaneous public performances that show what can come from mutual trust and empathetic understanding.
Watch a video about the series here.
More about it:
Broadway World: “Peter Hedges Joins Irondale and NYPD in Fostering Change in Brooklyn Through Theater”
TPSU Podcast
Watch back: To Protect, Serve and Understand Round 9
Want to support TPSU?
Whether it’s subsidizing civilian stipends or contributing a communal meal or videography skills, you can help us finance and continue this profound work. There are many options and ways to support.
Please contact Development Director Victoria Entel or Terry Greiss to discuss
TPSU Zoomcast
The Space at Irondale
85 South Oxford Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
What they Say
Press
- 11.11.20 – Police 1 – ‘Walk a mile in my shoes’: Building empathy between cops and communities
- 09.30.20 – WCBS – Difference Makers: Brooklyn theater looks to bridge nation’s divide
- 09.24.20 – ABC7 News – Program allows NYPD officers, community to have important discussions
- 09.24.20 – Times Square Chronicles – What to Watch
- 09.23.20 – The Broadway Blog – Irondale and NYPD Use Theater to Build Empathy and Community
- 09.18.20 – BK Reader – Fort Greene Theater Uses Acting to Ease Tensions Between Civilians and NYPD
- 09.04.20 – Theater Pizzazz – Today’s Theatre Talk
- 09.03.20 – New York Theater – September 2020 Theater Openings
- 09.01.20 – Broadway World – Irondale Theater to Present Two-Part Zoomcast with NYPD and Civilians
- 11.13.2019 – Broadway World Irondale Partners With NYPD For Workshops
- 11.06.2019 – NY1 How Officers and Civilians Come Together in Brooklyn Using Improv Theater
- 08.05.2019 – American Theatre Better Policing Through Theatre
- 02.01.17 – Storytelling magazine report
- 12.31.16- Jeff Lunden’s report on NPR
- 10.2.16 – Newsday review
- 7.19.16 – Nonprofit Quarterly Improv for Cops and Other Artistic Approaches to BLM and Gun Control
- 7.2.2016 – The New Yorker Improv for Cops
- 2.4.2016 – The Wall Street Journal Police and the Public Bridge Gap on Stage
- 2.3.2016 – BrooklynPaper.com Working blue: Police perform in improv show
- 1.26.2016 – BRIC/BK Live video on To Protect, Serve, and Understand Project
- 12.1.2015 – DNAinfo.com Improving Police-Community Relations Once Improv at a Time
Visit Us
It’s Easy to Get to Irondale
in the heart of Brooklyn’s Cultural District
85 South Oxford Street
Fort Greene, Brooklyn 11217