We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Becky Leifman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Becky below.

Becky, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

CO/LAB Theater Group is a nonprofit organization that offers individuals with developmental disabilities a creative and social outlet through theater arts. At Syracuse University, where myself and the other co-founders went to school, there was a similar program there that we all participated in. We were all touched, moved, and excited by the collaborative nature of working with adults with developmental disabilities that when we moved to NYC, we wanted to find something just like it. After looking and asking, we couldn’t find any comparable organization and decided to create it ourselves!

Becky, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started my college time as a theater major, hoping to be on Broadway! Alongside those studies, I was introduced to a group called ‘Young Actors’ which was a group of individuals with developmental disabilities working alongside theater students creating a show each semester. I was hooked. It was the best part of my week, and I always left feeling on cloud 9. Unfortunately, I was not leaving my acting classes feeling that way and realized I needed to make a switch. Theater and performing could be a hobby, and a program like this could be my career.

CO/LAB offers classes and workshops for individuals with developmental disabilities — mostly for free! Our CO/LAB:core weekly classes that culminate in performances are completely free to the actors. CO/LAB:connect sends teaching artists into the community for workshops and residencies at partnering organizations.

The thing I feel most proud of is how involved the CO/LAB actors are in our decision making, branding, and storytelling. They often share their own experiences in our fundraising campaign, on any public podcast or like outlet, and in our videos. The actors are the heart of CO/LAB in all ways.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I am sure many other people have answered this question but – COVID was the ultimate pivot. We had to learn how to do theater on the computer – and learn we did! CO/LAB has an incredibly creative programming department and Teaching Artists who developed creative curriculum that was inclusive, accessible, and fun! We also were lucky enough to be in a financial position where we were able to pay everyone for their lost work due to the pandemic, ensure that our staff was taken care of, and we even set up an emergency fund for our Teaching Artists who were losing their other work. It was scary and unknown but the financial stability that we built and the community care that we centered really brought us through.

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

We do! As a non-profit, our revenue comes from foundations, government funders, individuals, special events, and program revenue.

Contact Info:

• Website: colabtheatergroup.com
• Instagram: @bleifman
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-leifman-0a858355/

Image Credits
Stewart Villilo, Matte O’Brien