"Marcie has helped to weave the communities Alianzas serves into the fabric of People's Light by her mindfulness of inclusion and the importance of representation. This is crucial to Alianzas' mission to create exchanges for our diverse communities through the many allies we have fostered throughout the years. Marcie has been a part of that allyship with her humanity and energy!"
- Nina M. Guzmán, Executive Director
Alianzas de Phoenixville
As a creative producer, Marcie galvanizes teams and resources to develop large-scale and intimate programming that meets our moment, fostering curiosity over judgment, in order to achieve new levels of understanding and weave communities more tightly together.
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Whether coordinating a participatory play reading program for individuals with Alzheimer's or producing a new play festival like Northern Writes, she strategically forges opportunities of mutual benefit within the communities she works with and prioritizes a warm welcome to open a theatre’s work, campus, and community of makers.​
Community Matters
A reading and discussion series at People’s Light featuring staged readings of plays designed to spark dialogue around vital community issues. Topics run the gamut, ranging from individual civil liberties to school shootings. At the intersection of theatre and civic engagement, Marcie has produced this series since 2014. Click here to read more about the 2020 Community-inspired COVID Edition. 
​Community Celebrations
Drawing together stakeholders, artists, and local vendors, Marcie has produced lively community gatherings that intersect thematically with concurrently running plays.

For example, Marcie and a robust team of colleagues welcomed hundreds of neighbors, patrons and artists to the People’s Light campus for festivities including a Family Fun Day and a Backyard BBQ, aligned with People's Light productions, Arthur and the Tale of the Red Dragon: A Musical Panto and Our Town, respectively.

Likewise, when producing Zora Neale Hurston's Spunk at Penobscot Theatre Company, Marcie brought together a regional gospel choir, a local historian, a nationally acclaimed blues guitarist and Hurston scholar, Lucy Anne Hurston (Zora’s niece) onto the stage of the historic Bangor Opera House for an evening of celebration around the author’s indelible legacy. ​
​Surround Programs
"Surround" events and programs are designed to complement or amplify a theatre production, towards increased engagement.

When People’s Light premiered Such Things as Vampires, “a punk-folk inoculation,” Marcie was inspired to host a Pride reception with the LGBT Equality Alliance of Chester County and a campus blood drive  (and yes, each donor received their very own plastic vampire teeth. She couldn’t resist).

For People’s Light’s multi-ethnic production of The Diary of Anne Frank, it was important to crack open the work in a multitude of ways. Click here to read about the robust programming Marcie brought together.
Panoramic image of a group of 30+ individuals standing and sitting in a casual circle, listening to a speaker in the middle of the group, several with glasses raised for a toast. The surroudning room has a wall of books, an open door, a white office wall, and a glimmer of a wall of windows that reveals darkness outside.
Pride Reception for Such Things As Vampires
Community-Based Workshops
Marcie extends the reach of Theatre programming into community settings with participatory workshops and events, including participatory play readings, storytelling workshops and discussions with senior citizens, including individuals with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and with students. Host sites have included the Downingtown Area Senior Center, Surrey Services, the Charles A. Melton Arts & Education Center, the Garage Community & Youth Center, Kennett Area Senior Center and the Alzheimer's Association.
​Professional Trainings & Continuing Education
Inspired by the subject matter of mainstage productions, Marcie works with community partners to identify opportunities for professional development trainings. Click here to read more about the trainings Marcie produced for Project Dawn. 
A horizontal image of a panel with four speakers dressed professionally seated on a theatre stage that is set in a court room, the facilitator a middle-aged white man stands to the side in the background, and audience members are on both sides of the panel, in the distance, focused on the conversation, seated on the far-side of the image, and in the foreground of the image to the right-hand side.
Project Dawn: Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation Panel
Production-Specific Intersections
Marcie enjoys supporting the artistic vision of her colleagues and the opportunity to weave community participation into professional productions. 

She coordinated a moment of delight in the People’s Light holiday Panto Little Red Robin Hood, when a police line-up to find the outlawed “Little Red” unexpectedly broke out into a joyful, choreographed performance featuring a nightly rotation of community performers including ballet and tap dance troupes, martial arts classes, cheerleading squads, and more.
Likewise, for People’s Light, Marcie assembled and cast community members into the Our Town choir - some auditioners sang songs on Marcie’s voicemail. Selected choir members had a range of experience levels, including plenty of first-timers. One shared, “At age 82, it was something I never expected to happen.  I’m so glad I took advantage of the opportunity. It was a great experience, and I’ll never forget it.”
Dramaturgical Artist Education Opportunities
​Marcie has drawn on the expertise of community partners for dramaturgical context for actors, directors and production designers. Marcie brought the cast of People’s Light’s production of Biloxi Blues to learn about Basic Training from students with the University of Pennsylvania's TRIO Upward Bound Veterans program. Additionally, when People’s Light mounted an adaptation of Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard, Marcie arranged hands-on pottery demos for the creative team with master potters, Bob Deane with the Community Arts Center in Wallingford; and Teresa Chang in her Philadelphia studio.
IN the bottom, center of the image master potter Bob Deane sits at a pottery wheel, wearing a blus tie-dye shirt and long pants covered in clay across from an actor in a white t-shirt with thick black-frame glasses and dark black hair. Playwrithg Jeanne Sakata, a woman kneels with her hand on her cheek behind and between the men at the pottery wheel, whe looks on with great interest and delight. Three men stand around the pottery wheel toward the back of the image studying the work on the wheel. The room is a pottery studio with shelves stocked full of materials and supplies all across the wall.
A Single Shard, Pottery Demo with Actors
Subscriber Insights
Subscriber Insights are periodic notes about theatre programming, company member news, and other exciting goings on at People's Light. These newsletters allow Marcie to give subscribers an inside look into the process of the making, the ways in which People's Light is approaching and opening a production and other potential "news" or insights of interest. Click here to read samples. 
Site Design by Amy Abrigo, You Are The Special Web Design