Meet Emelia! Our New Artistic Director
Founding Artistic Director, Sandy Robbins, will be handing over Artistic Direction to Emelia Asiedu this year 2025!
As many of you may know, our Founding Artistic Director, Sandy Robbins, will be handing over Artistic Direction to Emelia Asiedu this year 2025. Emelia brings extensive experience as an international performer and educational theatre maker, as well as an arts administrator.
Emelia originally began her relationship with The Shadow Box Theatre as a performer several years ago, but soon also took on the responsibilities of an administrative assistant and has been the part-time Associate Artistic Director since 2023. She wrote Ananse and the Pot of Stories, a sage and adventure-filled children’s show based on a Ghanaian folktale to be included in SBT’s repertoire, already seen in classrooms and stages around NYC!
We are excited to welcome Emelia fully into her role as we continue to grow our artistic offerings in a diverse and multi-faceted direction to reach our target audience of underserved populations in and around NYC.
Q & A with Emelia!
Q: What is your mission with The Shadow Box Theatre?
A: I'm thrilled to join The Shadow Box Theatre, an organization that shares my passion for empowering children through the arts. With a background in working with children, I've always aimed to inspire them to become active, positive contributors to society. I believe that high-quality productions, storytelling, and workshops can have a profound impact on young minds.
In my new role, I'm excited to continue this work on a larger scale, helping to instill lasting, positive values in children's lives. I'm looking forward to collaborating with the team to create engaging, meaningful experiences that touch the hearts and minds of children, fostering a love for the arts and promoting positive growth.
Q: How do you envision the theatre growing over the next 5, 10, 20 years?
A: In the next 5 years our aim is to restore our repertoire to pre-pandemic level and expand our programming. We hope to restart our two MainStage shows and add a third. For our traveling storytelling shows, we aim to set up satellite performers outside the five boroughs so that we can expand our reach. We also aim to recruit more talented Teaching Artists with expertise in a variety of artistic areas to enable us to present more workshops.
Ultimately, within the next 10 to 20 years and beyond, I am very hopeful that we can grow into a full service theatre organisation with our own dedicated performance venue and continued partnerships with NY arts organizations where we tour our shows. I am confident that we will also be able to develop vibrant new storytellings, and high quality arts collaborations and workshops, and expand our services into summer breaks with more performances and extended workshops.
Q: What was the inspiration behind Ananse and the Pot of Stories and how does the show fit in SBT repertoire?
A: In creating “Ananse” I wanted to infuse elements of my Ghanaian heritage and culture into our offerings to add to the personal and global awareness that SBT is known for.
I think it is no coincidence that the first show I was cast in “The African Drum”, had references to my native language “Twi” and to folk stories I heard growing up. So I felt this was the perfect way to segue into my new role while bringing some of my background into our offerings.
“Ananse” showcases Ghanaian culture and folklore tradition not only through the story structure and audience participation, but also in the costumes, most of which were sourced from Ghana, and the musical rhythms which follow the signature patterns of Ghanaian highlife music. I am very proud of this show as my first contribution to the theatre!
