Diane Edgecomb is a world-renowned storyteller. According to Publisher’s Weekly, she is “…a virtuoso of the spoken word…an entire cast rolled into one!”

Diane is currently building a multi-media “story” of the work of Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre. Grotowski was a major force in Polish theater from the 1950s. He founded the Laboratory Theater in 1959, and working with his principal collaborator, Zbigniew Cynkutis, he brought a revolution to the dramatic arts behind the “Iron Curtain” of the Soviet Union-dominated nations of eastern Europe – and the rest of the world, as well. This story has never been told in full.

The international storytelling experience of Diane (Kurdish folktales gathered in the war zone of the Kurdistan region of Turkey for one example) demonstrates her personal commitment to documenting the significant invisible worlds of cultures that can be lost to time and forced homogeneity.

The scope of the Impact Grant project will point generations of activists to the origin of some more powerful protest gestures which originated in the Theatre. For instance, the idea of holding aloft a lit disposable lighter as an act of “participation” on the staged drama – found itself used on the streets in protest – and 70 years later is still replicated with mobile phone lights at concerts. The weaving together of these seemingly minimal gestures shows the timeless link of now long-forgotten activists with the current generations.

Diane Edgecomb is tying together the generations – that is why we like her.