Interview by AFA Intern McKenna Dixon in Fall 2022
Q: Who are you?
Stephanie: My name is Stephanie Martinez, and I am a teaching artist, director, and stage manager. I’m a cat mom (my cat is named June) and a ferret mom (I love them dearly–their names are Puck and Splinter). And I’m a Long Islander!
Q: How did you first get involved in your specific discipline of art?
Stephanie: In high school, I was an actor, but I also got to assistant direct some of my former middle school’s productions. Then, when I got to Hofstra University, I gravitated towards stage management. In my junior year there, I heard that the team who originally put on my middle school’s productions had dropped out, and the advisor of the program was doing Into the Woods, Jr. At the time, I was an Assistant Stage Manager on another production of Into the Woods, Jr., so I asked if I could help out with their auditions. Fast-forward to now, I’ve been the Director of the West Hempstead Middle School Drama Club for five years! This led me to directing at the high school, when that position opened up last year.
Q: What role did the arts play in your childhood?
Stephanie: A hugely pivotal role. Although not all of my family members are artists in the traditional sense, we are very theatrical people. My dad would do storytime in my kindergarten and early classrooms, and he would come dressed up and make a big show of it. The first acting role that I had as a kid was in first grade, where we put on a show about a snowman who had such a warm heart that he melted. During my childhood, I don’t think I had wanted to pursue anything besides theatre.
Q: What is your educational background?
Stephanie: I received my BFA in Stage Management from Hofstra University and am currently pursuing my M.S.Ed in Educational Theatre at The City College of New York. In my senior year at Hofstra, I was in the Honors College, and I did my Honors Thesis on bringing theatre to West Hempstead. It resulted in a series of workshops led by Hofstra students and professors for West Hempstead high school students. Through my research in that, my advisor suggested I look into undergrad and grad institutions that focus on community engagements in theatre. Thus, I found CCNY in Harlem and interviewed the chair of the department, who invited me to apply to the program. This upcoming June, I will graduate.
Q: Did you experience a particular “aha moment” in which you realized theatre was your passion?
Stephanie: There wasn’t one particular moment where I realized theatre was my passion, but I always knew I had to go into the arts. From childhood, I knew I wanted to pursue the arts. Then, when I worked on those shows in West Hempstead, I fell in love with educational theatre.
Q: How do the children you work with inspire you to continue being a teaching artist?
Stephanie: Whenever I get down about something, I think about the time when a student held my hand and told me I was a good teacher, and then I think to myself, “Of course I can do this for the rest of my life.” During my first Arts For All class, I reassured the students that, even though I would be missing the next class, I would come back. One of the kids asked me to make a pinky promise, and when I did, the rest of the class held out their pinkies, and I pinky promised all of them that I would be back. That was very sweet. Also, children are super resilient. As a collective humanity, we have experienced so much over the past couple years, and I admire the kids’ ability to be sweet through it all. They are such bright lights.
Q: What is one of the main takeaways you hope the students gain from your classes?
Stephanie: I hope they gain a love of reading. Everyone deserves to have stories read to them, so I try to bring in books that are interesting to them, topical, bilingual, relevant, and interactive. I want to foster their love for reading early on.
Q: What drew you to Arts For All? What are you most looking forward to this year?
Stephanie: I have done a lot of after-school programs, and I really wanted to do more in-school work in partnership with teachers, and Arts For All offers exactly that. I am so, so excited for Literacy Through the Arts because reader’s theater is one of my favorite things to teach, especially because there are so many activities to explore with it, like storybook theater and advancing literacy skills, while also having so much fun with the story.
Q: What does art mean to you?
Stephanie: Humans are storytellers. Storytelling is the way in which we communicate and make sense of the world; it is so essential to our understanding of each other, of humanity. When we don’t know what to do, our default is to create. And when we do know what to do, we also want to create.
