Gail Marlene Schwartz

ail Marlene Schwartz is Founding Artistic Director of Third Story Window, an interdisciplinary performance company dedicated to individual and social transformation through the telling of lived stories. One of her current projects, Crazy: One Woman's Search for Sanity, addresses anxiety and depression and is drawn from her own experiences. The work was honored as a selection of the juried New York International Fringe Festival; she has presented it in various formats across North America, including: the Canadian Mental Health Association’s national conference as well as provincial CMHA conferences in Ontario and Saskatchewan; the Clifford Beers Foundation conference in Toronto; the Ontario College Committee on Disability Issues conference; the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Community Arts Convening in California; Nova Scotia’s Mental Health Festival of Hope; and the Anxiety Disorders Association of Canada in Montreal. She has also presented Crazy to medical students, high school and junior high school students, college and university students, spiritual communities, mental health care consumers and general audiences across Canada and the U.S. She collaborated with several organizations in New England on a stigma-busting tour of the project in 2008, including VSA Arts, Vermont Protection and Advocacy, VT Association for Mental Health and several universities and graduate programs. An article she wrote about the project was recently published on the Community Arts Network’s online professional journal. She founded her production company, Third Story Window, in 2004 after receiving her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts/multimedia performance from Goddard College. Gail strongly believes that authentic, open-hearted and creative connections can work the magic necessary for individual and social transformation to occur. www.thirdstorywindow.com