We create original, multidisciplinary performances that illuminate the painful truths and joyful triumphs of the underheard in order to catalyze collective healing and a more just society.
Founded in 1995 by Kathy Randels ArtSpot was incorporated in Louisiana in December 2000 and received its 501(c)3 status from the IRS in October 2002. Our performances have toured throughout the world, we offer workshops, and practice partnerships with artists and organizations in New Orleans and beyond who are committed to eliminating oppressions and creating a more just and equitable nation and world.
Our work addresses challenges that persist in southeast Louisiana: the oppression of women and gender equity; the legacy of slavery, from systemic racism to mass incarceration; and our reliance on the fossil fuel industry to the detriment of our ground, water, air and selves. We see our performance work as aiding in healing our people and our ecosystems, and strive ultimately to help shift our state’s economy from extractive to regenerative and healing.
We believe that all stories and voices deserve expression, and that performance is an essential element of collective healing for all communities, especially those whose voices are not often heard. We have worked with one of these underheard communities—currently and formerly incarcerated women—for almost 30 years. In that time, we’ve witnessed just how rancid Louisiana’s criminal legal system can be—and that has connected us more deeply to advocacy groups and other organizations that are working to ameliorate, reimagine and end the damage caused by incarceration.
A focus on environmental issues in general, and Hurricane Katrina in particular, committed us to making site-specific work; it became important to us that the community and place in which we worked and performed be as integral to the creation of new work as the artists involved. Since 2005, we’ve created eight original site-specific outdoor performances and partnered with organizations such as A Studio in the Woods, the Gulf Restoration Network (Healthy Gulf), and Gulf Future Coalition, to name just a few.
Kathy Randels is a native New Orleanian, a theatre artist/educator, and the artistic director of ArtSpot Productions. She studied, lived and worked in Chicago from 1987-1994, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Performance Studies in 1991 from Northwestern University. Upon returning to New Orleans in January 1995, she founded ArtSpot Productions. She has written, performed in, and directed numerous original solo and collaborative group works for professional, student and incarcerated ensembles in Louisiana and beyond. Her soul-shaking work has been presented in a dozen countries on four continents and in more than thirty of these United States.
She co-founded and co-directs the LCIW Drama Club (since 1996) and The Graduates, a performing ensemble of formerly incarcerated women (since 2012), and since 2023 had co-directed the ARCH (Arts, Racial Justice, Culture and Healing) program with Bar None by Design and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office at the Orleans Justice Center. She has contributed writing to several books, including SEE ME: Prison Theatre Workshops and Love, by Jan Cohen-Cruz, and is working on a book with and about Gloria "Mama Glo" Williams entitled The Unbreakable Queen.
In Her Own Words...
Traveling the Road to Damascus, South Writ Large (2023)
The Evolution of the Graduates, HowlRound (2013)
Recommended Reading
Raging with Love —Alex Ates, Scalawag (2019)
ArtSpot aims to change the world —Pamela Marquis, The Advocate (2015)
Remembering Katrina —Jess Solomon, U.S. Dept of Arts & Culture (2015)
The Passion of Kathy Randels —Constance Adler, Gambit Cover Story (2004)
info@artspotproductions.org
Toll-free: (866) ARTSPOT
Local: (504) 826-7783