Willa Shalit | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1955 (age 68–69) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Spouse(s) | Michael Schneider (divorced) Anthony James Heynen |
| Children | 1 |
| Parent(s) | Gene Shalit Nancy Lewis |
| Website | www |
Willa Shalit (born 1955) is an American social entrepreneur and strategic advisor. She is widely recognized for her work as an artist, theatre and television producer, photographer and author/editor. [1]
Shalit was born in 1955 in New York City to film and book critic Gene Shalit and Nancy Shalit ( née Lewis). Her parents were of Russian Jewish descent. Her name comes from the American author Willa Cather. [2] She was born the second of six children. [3] Shalit was raised in Leonia, New Jersey. [4] Her father shielded the family from the public eye. [4] Her brother, Dr. Peter Shalit is an internal medicine physician and the author of Living Well: The Gay Man's Essential Health Guide. [5] Her uncle was Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Anthony Lewis; her aunt, and Lewis' widow, is retired Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, who wrote the decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health resulting in the world’s first ruling in a court of final appeal legalizing same sex marriage.
When Shalit was 15, she was raped at knifepoint. She said of the experience, "I learned that life can change in the blink of an eye and that security is very illusory. I also realized there are some experiences that require a lifetime to recover from." She explained that this understanding would prove to be deeply constructive, if cruel, training for finding common ground with the women of Rwanda. [6]
She graduated from Saint Ann's School (Brooklyn) in 1974. [7] In 1978, she graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in Classics. [4] After graduating, she moved to Martha's Vineyard and partnered with artist Richard Lee to create masks. [4]
Throughout the 1980s, Shalit created "lifecast" sculptures [8] made from molds formed directly upon human faces and bodies. Her casts of five former United States presidents [9] are in the collections of their respective presidential libraries. Other examples of her work are on display at the United States Olympic Committee's training center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the Fogelson Library at the College of Santa Fe (now Santa Fe University of Art and Design), and the Jewish Guild for the Blind in New York City. She also created life casts for Muhammad Ali, Bill Gates, Clint Eastwood, Sting, civil rights leader Rosa Parks, choreographer Alvin Ailey, Isaac Stern, sculptor Louise Nevelson, prima ballerina Natalia Makarova and the 14th Dalai Lama.
In 1986, Shalit collaborated with Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and Gilbert Moses to design masks and costumes for Morrison’s play Dreaming Emmett, directed by Mr. Moses.
In 1994, Shalit and her lifecasting art were featured in the Emmy Award-winning television documentary, Willa: Behind The Mask.
She was artist-in-residence at the College of Santa Fe from 1989 to 1994. [10]
In 1998, Shalit's exhibit "Incarcerated Women: A View From the Inside Out" was featured at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. The installation displayed life-cast facial portraits of inmates from the Bexar County Adult Detention Center in San Antonio, Texas. [11] [12]
In 1985, Shalit produced James Lecesne's play One Man Band off-Broadway.
Shalit was the producer [13] of the first anti-violence benefit performance of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues with Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder, Calista Flockhart, Lily Tomlin and others. She also produced a 1997 reading of Eve Ensler's Necessary Targets at the Helen Hayes Theater Broadway starring Meryl Streep, Anjelica Huston, and Cherry Jones [14] and the landmark V-Day 2001 performance in Madison Square Garden featuring Oprah Winfrey, Queen Latifah, Glenn Close, Claire Danes and many others. [15] Shalit continued to produce the play in February 1998 in New York City, and during a second reading of the play at Kennedy Center for then First Lady Hillary Clinton starring Natalie Portman and Jena Malone. From 1999 to 2003 Shalit produced the play during the off-Broadway run at New York City's Westside Theater and later served as executive producer of the 2002 HBO film of the show. She was an executive producer of Until the Violence Stops , a documentary film about V-Day's 2002 activities. [16]
She co-produced the 2002 off-Broadway run of Ensler's Necessary Targets, produced Carol Kaplan's play Jocasta Rising at the Artscape Theatre Centre in Cape Town, South Africa in 2004, [17] and was an associate producer of the 2004 Broadway revival of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom starring Whoopi Goldberg. [18] [19]
Shalit's photos of Afghanistan, Rwanda and Israel have been published in the Chicago Tribune , The New York Times , the International Herald Tribune , Parade magazine, Marie Claire magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine , and distributed by the Associated Press wire service. [20]
Her 1992 book Lifecast: Behind the Mask ( ISBN 0941831787) details her methods and experiences casting sculptures of the Dalai Lama and other notable persons. Proceeds from the book benefitted the Touch Foundation, which sponsors "Please Touch" exhibits of work for the blind and visually impaired. [21]
In 2005, along with Yoko Ono, Shalit edited the HarperCollins book Memories of John Lennon; it features intimate glimpses from those who knew John, including Pete Townshend, Sir Elton John, and David Geffen, and artists who followed him such as Bono, Alicia Keys and Carlos Santana. The book also contains photographs from Annie Leibovitz.
Shalit edited Becoming Myself: Reflections on Growing Up Female, [22] a collection of essays and reminiscences by notable women including Meryl Streep, Maya Angelou, and America Ferrera, that was published by Hyperion in April 2006.
To bring economic advancement to women in post-trauma zones, Shalit has worked to create markets [23] in the United States for products manufactured jointly by Palestinian and Israeli women, and by women survivors of the Rwandan genocide. [24]
Shalit's company, Fair Winds Trading, became an importer of handmade goods from Rwanda and partnered with Macy's for the Rwanda Path to Peace project to market handwoven Rwandan baskets, [25] including those made by Janet Nkubana's organization Gahaya Links, in the United States, and produced hand-beaded gemstone and glass bracelets in partnership with O, The Oprah Magazine. [26] In 2015, Macy's and Rwanda Path to Peace celebrated a 10-year partnership.
In 2010, Fair Winds Trading launched the Heart of Haiti line working with Macy's and the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. The line included handcrafted products made by Haitian artists and was part of an effort to help rebuild from the 2010 Haiti earthquake. [27] Shalit organized a trip to Haiti where Macy's leaders, joined by Martha Stewart and Rachel Roy, met with local artisans. [28] In 2010, Macy's was the biggest U.S. retailer selling handmade Haitian goods, followed by the West Elm and Anthropologie chains. [29]
In 2011, Shalit co-founded the communications firm Road to Market, ltd where she develops global branding strategies and continues to work with social justice missions and worldwide movements.
Shalit also co-founded an online platform for women designers called Maiden Nation. The site features work designed by Rachel Roy, Lauren Bush, Yoko Ono, Gloria Steinem and Chan Luu. [30]
When Shalit’s friend Anne Glauber was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2014, [31] together they held an information-gathering meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, where they met with Dr. Allyson Ocean of New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine, Kerri Kaplan of the Lustgarten Foundation and others. The team developed Let’s Win - an online community for sharing new science-driven treatments to help patients and families fight pancreatic cancer. Shalit is the co-founder and digital director of Let’s Win.
Shalit serves as President of the Board for Indigenous Ways, an advocacy organization based in New Mexico. [32] She also is a team member at 18by.vote, a non-partisan youth-led organization developed to support teenage voter registration and voting.
Shalit's Touch Foundation created an exhibit of touchable lifecasts of the faces of celebrities and other notable individuals, for the purpose of making those faces accessible to the blind and visually impaired, which toured American museums from 1990 to 2000, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tennessee.
Shalit was a member of the Board of Trustees at the College of Santa Fe from 1990 to 1995.
She co-founded V-Day with Ensler and served as its first executive director. V-day is a non-profit organization that distributes funds to grassroots, national, and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls. [33] During her time as executive director, Shalit traveled with Ensler on a "harrowing undercover journey" to chronicle the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan's fight against the Taliban in 2002. More than 2,000 members of this clandestine network provide shelter, education and medical services to Afghan women and girls—all in defiance of the Taliban. [34]
Shalit served as a special advisor to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) [35] and The United Nations Ethical Fashion Initiative. [36] In 2007, Shalit joined the Board of Directors of the Hadassah Foundation. [37] She currently serves on the Board of the Israeli Palestinian Peace organization, American Friends of the Parents Circle, (Parents Circle Family Forum) and on the Advisory Board of Feminist.com.
in 2014, Shalit was one of the first sponsors of Women and Men as Allies, an initiative founded by Feminist.com in partnership with The Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at Stony Brook University. [38]
Women's eNews named Shalit one of "21 Leaders for the 21st Century" in 2006. [39] The Holmes Report, a magazine for public relations professionals, gave a 2006 Superior Achievement in Branding and Reputation Award to Shalit's Rwanda Path to Peace project, which was also "highly commended" by the judges of the International Chamber of Commerce's 2006 World Business Awards in support of the United Nations Development Programme's Millennium Development Goals.
Calista Kay Flockhart is an American actress. She is best known for portraying the title character on the Fox television series Ally McBeal (1997–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe Award in 1998 and was thrice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. From 2006 to 2011, she starred as Kitty Walker on the ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters, and between 2015 and 2021, Flockhart appeared as Cat Grant on the superhero drama Supergirl. In film, she is known for roles in The Birdcage (1996), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), and Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000).
Robin Givens is an American actress.
Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera, and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997 and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for her direction and costume design. Her 2002 film Frida, about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a Best Original Song nomination for Taymor's composition "Burn It Blue". She also directed the 2007 jukebox musical film Across the Universe, based on the music of the Beatles.
Patti Ann LuPone is an American actress and singer best known for her work in musical theater. After starting her professional career with The Acting Company in 1972 she soon gained acclaim for her leading performances on the Broadway and West End stage. She has won three Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, and two Grammy Awards, and was a 2006 inductee to the American Theater Hall of Fame.
The Vagina Monologues is an episodic play written in 1996 by Eve Ensler which developed and premiered at HERE Arts Center, Off-Off-Broadway in New York and was followed by an Off-Broadway run at the Westside Theatre. The play explores consensual and nonconsensual sexual experiences, body image, genital mutilation, direct and indirect encounters with reproduction, vaginal care, menstrual periods, prostitution, and several other topics through the eyes of women with various ages, races, sexualities, and other differences.
V, formerly Eve Ensler, is an American playwright, author, performer, feminist, and activist. V is best known for her play The Vagina Monologues. In 2006 Charles Isherwood of The New York Times called The Vagina Monologues "probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade."
Kristin Dawn Chenoweth is an American actress and singer, with credits in musical theatre, film, and television. In 1999, she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Broadway. In 2003, Chenoweth was nominated for a second Tony Award for originating the role of Glinda in the musical Wicked. Her television roles include Annabeth Schott in NBC's The West Wing and Olive Snook on the comedy drama Pushing Daisies, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2009.
Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian-American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or edited several books and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. As of the fall of 2023, she will be the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University.
Monique Angela Hicks, known mononymously as Mo'Nique, is an American stand-up comedian and actress. She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Grammy Award.
V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls started by author, playwright and activist Eve Ensler. V-Day began on February 14, 1998, when the very first V-Day benefit performance of Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues took place in NYC, raising over $250k for local anti-violence groups. V-Day was formed and became a 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to raise funds and awareness to end violence against all women and girls. Through V-Day, activists stage royalty free, benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues "to fund local programs, support safe houses, rape crisis centers, and domestic violence shelters, change laws to protect women and girls, and educate local communities to raise awareness and change social attitudes toward violence against women" during the month February, with most of the benefit productions taking place on or about February 14. Ensler has been quoted as saying that it was women's reactions to the play that inspired her and her colleagues to launch V-Day. The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.
Harriet Sansom Harris is an American actress known for her theater performances and for her portrayals of Bebe Glazer on Frasier and Felicia Tilman on Desperate Housewives.
Eugene Shalit is an American retired journalist, television personality, film and book critic, and author. After starting to work part-time on NBC's The Today Show in 1970, he filled those roles from January 15, 1973, until retiring on November 11, 2010. He is known for his frequent use of puns, his oversized handlebar moustache and fuzzy hair, and for wearing colorful bow ties.
Goodtime Charley is a musical with a book by Sidney Michaels, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Hal Hackady.
Anne-christine d'Adesky is an American author, journalist and activist of French and Haitian descent living in New York. She has maintained a deep relationship with Haiti, reporting the 2010 earthquake from a feminist angle, especially noting the impact of the disaster on the lives of teenage girls. She has also contributed to humanitarian projects in East Africa, as well as conducting extensive research into HIV/AIDS and its treatment worldwide.
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One Billion Rising is a global campaign, founded by Eve Ensler, to end rape and sexual violence against women. It was started in 2012 as part of the V-Day movement. The "billion" refers to the UN statistic that one in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime, or about one billion. The campaign expands each year with new themes and artistic actions. In 2024, the theme of the campaign is Rise for Freedom. "This year's campaign will escalate the collective actions of activists worldwide, and amplify their call for systematic changes towards ending violence against women and children once and for all," said OBR global director Monique Wilson.
Dreaming Emmett is the first play by American writer Toni Morrison. First performed in 1986, the play was commissioned by the New York State Writers Institute at SUNY-Albany. The play's world premier, which was directed by Gilbert Moses, was on January 5, 1986 at Capital Repertory Theatre's Market Theater in Albany, New York.
Joyful Clemantine Wamariya is a Rwandan-American author, speaker, and human rights advocate.
Janet Nkubana is a basket weaver from Rwanda. She is known for her work coordinating the efforts of women in Rwanda to make baskets that are sold in the United States.
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