Our Team

Emily Garven

Emily Garven is an accomplished theater educator, director, and arts administrator with over 15 years of experience creating inclusive, community-centered theater. She currently teaches theater and dance at Boston Green Academy, where she founded and grew a vibrant new theater program that has quickly become a hub of creativity and collaboration.

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Beyond the classroom, Emily has 15+ years of experience as a theater director, producer, and consultant. She founded and led Inspiration Performing Arts from 2009 to 2021, a program dedicated to making theater accessible to underserved communities, and built it into an organization offering classes, national performance tours, large-scale productions, and community service through arts outreach. She is also the founder of Sharing the Spotlight, a theater program for individuals with special needs, and a proud board member for Uncommon Theater and the Young Professionals Board for Rodman for Kids.

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Emily is passionate about creating inclusive programming for students with disabilities and opening new avenues for young people to engage with theater through playwriting, critique, and collaborative creation. She presented at the 2025 American Alliance For Theatre & Education (AATE), sharing practical strategies and a toolkit for launching inclusive, trauma-informed theater programs in under-resourced schools, with focus on sustainability, advocacy, and engagement.

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She holds a Master’s in Arts Administration and certification in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for Theater from Inclusive Stages. Her vision for ACT centers on expanding programming that fosters artistic growth, diversity, and community engagement, with a strong emphasis on hands-on training for young artists in performance, design, technical theater, and leadership.