Megan received a Beinecke scholarship in 2018 to pursue an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts at Towson University. She completed her degree in 2022 and, in 2025, published her first book, Story Seeds: Growing Home at the Farmers Market, documenting the storytelling project that emerged from her M.F.A. studies. She is currently a Program Manager for Community-Engaged Learning at the University of Rochester, and presents about her arts practice at various community spaces, universities, and conferences.
Megan: As I frosted birthday cake with shaving cream, other crew members and actors waiting in the wings chatted nervously. “Did you hear that Broadway shutdown? If Broadway shut down, it must be really bad.” It was March 2020. The following week, the theatre I was working at in Philadelphia closed. I was less than a year out of undergrad with a B.A. in Theatre. Not knowing when (or if) the theatre industry would reopen, I decided now was as good a time as any to apply for my Beinecke scholarship.
As an undergraduate student, I often wrote, including in my Beinecke application, that I wanted to use theatre to “elevate marginalized stories.” The laboratory structure of my M.F.A. program gave me space to explore my interests in community-engaged theatre, bridging what I read and wrote about as an undergraduate student with an active practice. As a newcomer to Baltimore, the central question of my thesis explored an artist’s relationship with a new community. It was my experience working and shopping at the 32nd Street Farmers Market that showed me it wasn’t enough to make space for marginalized stories. Sharing my own story was critical to building reciprocal relationships that extended beyond a single storytelling encounter, like a theatre performance.
As part of the fieldwork for my thesis, I set up a folding table in the middle of the farmers’ market; baked five dozen muffins with zucchini, carrots, and walnuts from local farms; and asked people to “swap a story for a muffin.” Stories ranged from the first time at the market to the 633rd; from the joys of seasonal eating to the market’s consistent presence through the pandemic. After graduation, I continued the storytelling project and by May 2024, had gathered more than 200 stories. My husband and I were moving from Baltimore to Rochester, NY, and I felt a deep responsibility to share the stories that people had shared with me. Story Seeds: Growing Home at the Farmers Market was published a year later, combining personal memoir, scholarship, interviews, and my husband’s photographs.
I wouldn’t have moved to Baltimore if it weren’t for graduate school, and the support from the Beinecke scholarship made pursuing a graduate degree in the midst of a pandemic not only possible, but a lifeline amidst so much uncertainty. Having two years to focus on finding my own voice as a theatre artist empowered me not just to teach or facilitate, but to live a life that integrates my passion for art and theatre with community engagement. I’m grateful that the team at the Beinecke Foundation believed in my vision for how the arts can be a medium for generating new scholarship that is rooted in community voices. It is my hope that Story Seeds is a reminder of the power of what can grow when we direct our attention to the simple interactions that ground our lives.
Photo by Michael Caballes