Carly McCollow (she/her/ella) works at the intersection of education, restorative justice, art, anti-racism, connection, healing, and emotion.
As a theater artist, Carly has worn many hats. She collaborated as a Company and Stage Manager with Cynthia Hopkins/Accionosco’s piece This Clement World in its national and international touring and run at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. With Theater Mitu and Witness Relocation, she was the lighting designer on their pieces produced in Abu Dhabi, as well as a founding educator and collaborator in NYU Abu Dhabi’s undergraduate theater department. She was the lighting design/electrician intern with the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago. She also collaborated with choreographer/performance artist Miguel Gutierrez on both national and international tours, and was the founding dramaturg of the Te Ilum theater company. The downtown New York devised theater community has been her creative playground and family-of-choice.
After completing her BFA at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a Minor in Applied Theater, Carly expanded her creative efforts toward teaching artistry and community-based work. Completing two teaching artist development programs, she went on to co-create with young people and older adults through the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Ping Chong + Company, The Shakespeare Society, Girls Leadership, Arts for All, The Healing Arts Initiative, and The Moth, where she was a Lead Coach in storytelling work with the National Aphasia Association. Her reflections on that work are published in The Word Escapes Me: Voices of Aphasia. Most recently, she cofacilitated a Ping Chong + Company piece devised from a residency with elders on the Lower East Side of Manhattan titled Artful Storytelling: Fromings & Goings.
Out of a desire to take more responsibility for the internal and interpersonal healing she noticed taking place in her teaching artistry work, Carly studied Social Work at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. Now a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW), she served as the Program Director of after-school programs in Lower Manhattan, and acts as a facilitator and coach about trauma-informed work, social and emotional development, racial equity, and restorative justice with several organizations as well as in her own consulting practice, Holding Space, LLC. Recently, she used restorative practices to address sexual harm without involvement of the legal system. She regularly consults with NYC Pride, and is coaching two New Jersey public school districts in trauma-informed, anti-racist, and restorative practices. Carly also works as a facilitator with the Broadway Advocacy and does clinical work through Tanisha Christie’s Liberation-Based Therapy practice. She is currently contributing to a book about the application of theater education techniques to increase connection and engagement in non-theater college contexts, as well as cohosting a podcast on the embodiment and culture of whiteness in the US.