Co-Creating Social Connection Through Drama Therapy

NYU Steinhardt students, faculty, and alumni offer group sessions to residents of Breaking Ground, a permanent housing community.

Since 2023, NYU Steinhardt’s Drama Therapy program has worked with nonprofit Breaking Ground to provide group drama therapy for residents in their permanent housing communities. For the hundreds of residents who have participated over the years, sessions offer them a chance to build connections, explore their own creativity, and experience a sense of belonging. 

The partnership began with generous funding from dedicated philanthropist Ilse Melamid at three of Breaking Ground’s residential sites. Now, the program is offered at eight locations and serves a diverse range of residents experiencing housing insecurity. Last year alone, NYU Steinhardt Drama Therapy faculty, alumni, and eight graduate students led programming for 104 Breaking Ground participants.

“Breaking Ground’s work is about more than providing a safe, stable place to live,” says Tabitha Gronock, assistant vice president of programs at Breaking Ground. “It is also about creating opportunities for residents to feel connected, engaged, and part of a community. Our partnership with NYU Steinhardt’s Drama Therapy program has created a meaningful space where residents can express themselves, build relationships, and experience a sense of belonging in a way that feels creative, supportive, and accessible.”

During sessions, Breaking Ground participants are invited to discover shared values and experience being part of a supportive group. Through improvisation, storytelling, role-play, movement, and other theatre practices, participants encounter diverse perspectives while recognizing and celebrating individual and collective strengths.

At the heart of the program is a co-creative process in which residents and drama therapists explore personal stories, roles they have played or aspire to play in life, and possibilities for joy, expression, and connection. Through this process, participants are supported not only to make art, but to reclaim a positive creative identity where they can experience themselves as confident, playful artists and storytellers in their own lives, with something meaningful to express and contribute. 

“It brought some strength out of me that I didn't realize I had,” remarked one of the Breaking Ground residents. Another appreciated the commonalities that sessions unearthed, commenting that “it was more than just acting.”

“All of us shared a little something about our past history, and that kind of hit me,” the participant said. “It made me think okay, what you've been through, I've been through it, too.”

Exploring Impact through a Research Lens

In addition to facilitating the drama therapy sessions, NYU Steinhardt students also contribute to research examining the impact of the program. Sajnani and Anamarija Vuic ’25 (MA, Drama Therapy) collaborated on a mixed-methods study that was published in Drama Therapy Review in 2026. Their findings were subsequently highlighted as a case example in the Arts, Culture, and Leisure Report from the U.S. Foundation for Social Connection. 

The Drama Therapy program at NYU Steinhardt has also brought the work to broader professional audiences by presenting at the Association of Community Living Agencies in Mental Health Conference and the 24th Annual New York State Supportive Housing Conference.

The collaboration between the Drama Therapy program and Breaking Ground represents a model of community-engaged practice that is a hallmark of NYU Steinhardt’s work across disciplines to build creative, evidence-informed programs in partnership with the communities they serve.