This episode digs into one of the trickiest—and most revealing—corners of community-based arts work: the way humility and failure shape everything we do, from a 12-line role in Richard II to a city-wide public-art firestorm.

Leni Sloan, Barbara Shaffer Bacon and Bill Cleveland tumble into stories that peel back the glossy surface of “successful” arts practice:

• the actor with decades of experience learning cadence from an 18-year-old,
• the choreographer who turned military restrictions into creative fuel,
• the prison poet who left a Broadway star speechless.

And threaded through it all is this question: how do we stay porous enough—humble enough—to learn what the work is actually teaching us?

Together they talk about the kind of failure that doesn’t end a project but opens it—cracks the thing apart so the next, truer version can breathe. And they remind us that in this art-and-community dance, no one is ever done learning, not even the masters.

Listen in as we explore why humility is not soft, and failure is not fatal—they’re simply part of the craft.

And stick around: the next episode asks the big follow-up question—what responsibility do we carry for sustaining access to creative resources once communities have experienced their transformative power?

Use this Venmo account @Cheryl-Cotterill or send a check to:

Cheryl Cotterill

Attorney at Law

1770 Post Street #207

San Francisco, CA 94115

People

Leni Sloan

Actor, director, community-arts practitioner, and co-conversationalist in this episode, reflecting on humility, failure, and learning within community-engaged art.

Barbara Schaffer Bacon

Co-director of Animating Democracy and long-time leader in arts-based community development; contributes insight into constraints, ethics, and readiness in community practice.

Lori Woolery

Director formerly with Cornerstone Theater Company and a leader of community-based productions at The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park.

Liz Lerman

Choreographer, educator, and founder of the Dance Exchange, known for pioneering community-based performance projects including The Shipyard Project.

Robert Frost

Poet quoted for the line “Freedom is riding easy in the harness,” used here to illuminate creative constraint.

M.C. Richards

Potter, writer, and philosopher known for her disciplined practice of smashing imperfect pots—a metaphor for artistic rigor and humility.

F. Murray Abraham

Award-winning actor involved in the Broadway production of Waiting for Godot, who visited San Quentin and sought insight from incarcerated actor Spoon Jackson.

Spoon Jackson

Poet, educator, and long-incarcerated artist whose work in Arts-in-Corrections and...