As part of the “Bridging Creativity & Care” Series, this webinar highlights the powerful role of theater in supporting health and well-being across clinical and community settings. Through presentations and experiential activities, we’ll explore shared values, key distinctions, and opportunities for collaboration across sectors. Whether you're an actor, healthcare provider, educator, or simply curious about drama’s role in health, this session will offer valuable perspectives on how storytelling supports mental, emotional, and social well-being at all levels of care.

Speakers

Dr. Myriam Savage (Mimi) is a narrative trained drama therapist, board certified trainer, expressive arts life/ career coach and educator who develops and teaches both clinical and coaching curricula at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco in the two master’s programs with concentrations in expressive arts. She is a core faculty member and associate professor in the Masters of Counseling Psychology and Expressive Arts program as well as Expressive Arts Coaching and Community Building program. As director of an international school for drama therapy (So Cal Drama Therapy Center), she coaches professional development and consults those on track for certification. She is a founding faculty member of the Arts & Healing Initiative’s (formerly UCLArts & Healing) Social Emotional Arts (SEA) program. Her doctoral research centers on narrative, arts-based inquiry and the intersections of identity in adopted young women from foster care. Professor Savage presents internationally at conferences and authors peer-reviewed articles as an innovator of narrative, arts-based trauma care approaches using digital apps and drama therapy for participatory action research. She is currently writing and editing her book; a first-ever collaboration of leading BIPOC creative art therapists representing all the expressive arts modalities for Routledge/ Taylor & Francis publication titled: The Future of Black Creative Art Therapists: Practice, Pedagogy, and Preservation. Professor Savage has developed and manualized how to implement the arts for social activism, wellness, and education, facilitating international programs, and a myriad of schools, students and various professionals.

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Richard Loya is a first-generation Mexican-American, born in East Los Angeles but raised in South Central LA. He is the second son of four siblings, all of whom have immigrant parents. Richard married his high school sweetheart, recently purchased his first new car, and has two dogs. At the age of 16, Richard was tried as an adult and sentenced to serve 27 years to life, plus five years at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. After spending nearly 30 years incarcerated, Richard says it was there that he learned of the Arts in Corrections.

“You won’t meet a cooler, calmer, grounded, and collected fella”. That wasn’t the case before joining The Actors’ Gang. “Theater saved my life”.

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