“Jessica Litwak has taught me almost everything I know about how to facilitate group rituals and create theatrical healing spaces. Over the past 12 years I have watched Ms. Litwak’s commitment to ritual healing through theater evolve from passion to consciously honed skill. Her work with puppetry, song, mythology and story telling through the lens of current events (both global and personal) creates breakthrough and peace building. Additionally, Jessica’s years of work as an actress and director allows for the generation of performable art and catharsis through vulnerable presentation. Jessica truly walks her talk. Working with her is a revelation.”

“I worked with Jessica on a week long development of a verbatim piece of theatre in 2015. Having worked in theatre for the last fifteen years I have done my fair share of workshops and R&D weeks, but this was different. Jessica’s process was holistic and actor centred. Everything from the creative building of ensemble to the voice work we did was valuable to my ongoing work as an actor. As a group all left feeling we had been very privileged to work with Jessica. and would love to do so again.”

“I had a powerful experience working with Jessica as part of my graduate school program, where she taught courses in acting and applied theatre. Her acting techniques helped me to create more developed physicality for my characters, to cultivate ensemble among fellow actors, and to ground myself during warm-ups, in order to be my most generous self onstage. Jessica is warm, encouraging and is simultaneously willing to push students toward finding truth in their performances.

Her applied theatre course was incredibly inspiring because she has so much experience working with people on the ground. She provided us with exposure to dramatherapy techniques, Theatre of the Oppressed, Playback Theatre, and psychodrama. While we certainly spent time learning the mechanics of each of these forms, the reason this class was impactful is that it illustrated the many different ways of connecting theatre and public dialogue. Jessica made it possible for us to believe that theatre and the arts really do matter because they have the capacity to legitimately change people’s lives, and she introduced us to practitioners around the world who have used these techniques while working with the most vulnerable communities.”

“I have worked with Jessica and been in workshops led by her several times. You will not find a better person to create a community out of a group and embark on a creative process. I am impressed by the thoughtfulness of her workshop design, her inclusivity of everyone in the room and her attention to detail in both her instructions and execution. Perhaps most important is how she engages the groups in discussions about the work and themselves with deep listening, empathy and insightful questioning. Personally, I have learned a lot about the subjects of the workshops including theatre and peacebuilding, facing our fears, theatre for social change, voice work, puppet-making, directing and playwriting - but also I have learned about how to take care of a roomful of people who don’t yet know each other and create a safe place for them to engage in the risky work of mining their own creativity.”

“In High School, training with Jessica was an island on which I could escape adolescence and seriously do what I loved. She gave me a basic understanding of the tool that is me, an understanding that I still rely on today, ten years later. The poetry and love that she brought to our work then set a standard both for what I expect of myself and for what I seek out in the professional world. Her words are gems and her guidance is golden, and rarely have a met a teacher that cared so deeply.”

“Working with Jessica was an enriching experience as she calmly, but firmly guided us through a difficult process of creating a meaningful socially engaged theatre performance. With her help we became a group - together we created a safe space for sharing the fun as well as the tough life experience and we were able to create material which Jessica used in writing a play about childhood and stories we tell children. I see Jessica as very experienced and wise artist and teacher and I recommend meeting her (in theatre or in workshops).
The feeling of creating together as a group and looking for ways how to make the environment safe for the group sharing were inspiring for me in my own work as an improv teacher and artist and I’m thankful for this experience with Jessica.”

“In the past few years, I have had the chance of sharing the rehearsal room with Jessica on multiple occasions and in different parts of the world (Belgium, the United States, France). At those times, she wore a different hat. She was a playwright, an actor, a co-creator, a workshop leader, a catalyzer of thoughts and action, but each and every time, I was deeply touched by her competence and her contagious energy. An active volcano. That is really how I perceive her and her perennially creative being. Her core always active, tackling new challenges and eager to share that energy with all those surrounding her. If there I had to choose one thing of what remains with me, day after day, from those encounters, is what her own Emma Goldman says in “Love, Anarchy and Other Affairs”: “I believe in doing whatever it takes to make it happen.” Art is a collaborative venture and Jessica knows exactly how to share her infinite knowledge of the trade, in different contexts, but always with the same generosity and full-heartedness.”

“I don’t know about you, but I find new endeavors difficult Every field of knowledge is infinite so starting out is infinite ignorance. conceptual knowledge doesn’t give much leverage certainly not any kind of wisdom Couldn’t do a thing until a training with Jessica offered several direct ways to begin writing. It wasn’t what Jessica said, nor even what she demonstrated through acting, that helped, it was her visceral understanding of theatre in all aspects, as text, as acted, as directed, as lived - that communicated. She’s been trained by the best, some of the toughest task master’s in theatre, so as a trainee I had total confidence in her integrity from the get go. What was surprising was the kindness and compassion that made my overwhelming ignorance seem a good place to start from. The process has begun and I wish to communicate that this kind of mentoring is as rare as it is valuable.”

“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Jessica while in graduate school. Her passion and unwavering commitment to social justice and performance was, and still is, an inspiration. I imagine it isn’t easy to hold space for the gravity of work that she does. And yet, Jessica not only holds space, but facilitates discovery and creation, allowing performers and creators to evokes empathy and bravery within themselves and their work.”