Marielle is in the final stages of completing her Master's in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Drama Therapy at California Institute of Integral Studies. After two years of working as a Therapist Trainee with community mental health-based settings out in San Francisco, she is looking forward to returning home to the east coast later this summer!
As a Therapist, Marielle has worked with The Neighborly Project, whose mission is to provide "arts-based therapeutic rapid responses to community trauma, celebrations of resilience at intersections of race, class, culture, gender, and ablism, and respond to individual and neighborhood needs for social and emotional support that arise around threshold public events." With The Neighborly Project, she has help co-create and facilitate their emotional first aid pop-up interventions which have now been brought to election days, schools, libraries, conferences and museums to offer direct support to communities. As a Mental Health Trainee, Marielle completed her practicum with Urban Services YMCA, providing individual, family, and group therapy services for children in the schools and in the community both in person and via telehealth. She also created and facilitated teacher and staff support groups which continued during Covid-19 and moved to telehealth formats. She has led therapy groups including: Storytelling for Self-Expression, Teacher and Staff Support, Self Care and Coping Skills, Processing groups for Individuals with Chronic Illness and Disabilities, and more. As a consultant and facilitator, Marielle has collaborated with theater companies, community centers, and schools on ways to create accessible theatrical and educational experiences for populations with disabilities. Most recently, she was invited by Kaister Pemantente's Educational Theater department to lead a training on working with and adapting for individuals with Autism, using a Drama Therapy and Disability Justice-based lens. She has led a variety of Drama Therapy-based workshops focusing on identity at educational and artistic Institutions in New York and California. As a theater artist and educator, Marielle has directed with Boomerang Theatre Company, Flux Theatre Ensemble, Manhattan Theater Source, World Theater Day, and Metropolitan Playhouse, among others. She is the Artistic Director of Adaptive Arts Theater Company, a non-profit theater company that uses both an educational and production-based model to make theater more accessible to individuals with Invisible Disabilities. With Adaptive, she’s directed a devised adaptation of Goehte's Faust, Mensch’s All Hail Hurricane Gordo, Brecht’s Good Woman of Setzuan, Barrie’s Alice Sit by the Fire, and multiple workshops for their “Autism Initiative” program. As an arts educator, she has spent the 10 years teaching and collaborating with artists from 1 to 80 years old. Along with her educational journeys, she’s developed and implemented curriculum for theater residencies across country for neurotypical and neurodivergent children. |