This week on Curtain Call, Tom sits down with a remarkable husband-and-wife duo whose work spans classical theatre, regional stages, higher education, and the New York State prison system. Nick López and Jessica López-Barkl bring deeply personal insight into what it means to use theatre as a tool for connection, education, and social impact.
The conversation explores Nick’s long-standing work with Rehabilitation Through the Arts, where creativity plays a central role in dignity and transformation inside correctional facilities, alongside Jessica’s award-winning work as a playwright and theatre-maker whose projects explore grief, neurodiversity, and non-verbal storytelling. Together, they discuss collaboration, teaching, responsibility, and the ways theatre can open space for empathy in unexpected places.