Amy Oestreicher
Storyteller, musician, actress & playwright with sexual assault prevention & women's empowerment musical
How can we use theatre to bring marginalized voices center-stage and give a voice to the traumatized community? "Gutless and Grateful" is a primal piece of musical theatre, chronicling sexual abuse, 27 stomach surgeries, organ failure, six years unable to eat or drink, and months in a coma. Through interwoven song and dialogue, Amy shares a primal piece of live storytelling – a powerful message that it’s possible not only to transform adversity into creative growth, but to use this transformation as a means for reintegrating back into society. Amy shares her near death experience and unique story with humor, hunger and heart, highlighting struggles, triumphs, and gratitude in her life on a journey of hope, determination, and perseverance. A celebration of life through creativity, passion, and resilience, Amy shares how theatre helped to facilitate healing through a decade of trauma, serving as lifeline which enabled her to reclaim her voice and fuel an even greater passion for the stage.
Gutless & Grateful combines sexual assault prevention, disability advocacy, and mental health empowerment with an original musical theatre performance, followed by a talkback on cultivating resilience through bringing out untold stories to light. Oestreicher engages, empowers and educates through powerful firsthand experience and the transformative power of theatre. Through creativity, passion, and gratitude, theatre creates compassion through our shared experiences, driving towards inclusion.
The performed word, the nuanced gesture, has the power to transform our lives, our community, shape our world, cultivate self-love and create compassion. Amy will perform segments of her autobiographical musical, demonstrate the healing process of telling her story, and provide tools for others to do the same through creative exercises linking theatre to resiliency, empowerment and positive change. Drama, storytelling and music can bring marginalized voices center stage, and reframe our experience. Her story of physical and spiritual survival demonstrates the importance of theatre in times of trauma, and its ability to reframe our narratives, spawning post-traumatic growth
" Rarely have I seen narration and song so artfully meshed, and Oestreicher’s likeability, good humor, interpretive skill, and manifest commitment to what she is saying and singing make us not only understand her story, but also feel it on a very deep level. "
- NYC Bistro Awards
Gutless & Grateful strives to shift an entire community ethos in the direction of inclusion – partly to give courage and a sense of belonging to people who are struggling with all kinds of mental health or physical challenges, but also to help build a community that gives everyone the kind of awareness and generosity of spirit that makes that world a better place.