SALUTING VETERANS – Imagination Workshop and New Directions
Veterans have given their lives to us, now we give them center stage!
US Veterans are tapping into theatre arts as a way to find their confidence and improve their way of living. By challenging and getting out of themselves by becoming someone else – changes them, gives them confidence in communicating with others in a more relaxed way, gives them focus and confidence.
Imagination Workshop (IW) and New Directions for Veterans have served unhoused veterans in recovery at New Directions, the Salvation Army, and the California State Home for Veterans with workshops in the theater arts, led by specially trained professional theater artists. Most of the veterans they work with are trauma survivors, and in their therapy have to relive the trauma. IW is the only part of their therapy where they don’t have to dwell on the past, where they use the creative tools of the imagination, and it opens them to a new way of envisioning the future.
In the HEALING POST TRAUMATIC STRESS THROUGH IMAGINATIVE PLAY: Creativity, Vitality, and Connection, Victoria Stevens PhD, FIPA says, ‘I have been evaluating the work of the Imagination Workshop with the New Directions Program since 2016 with the goal of not only assessing the efficacy of the series of sessions with this group, but also with the goal of understanding the uniqueness of this specific form of theatre in the context of current research on post- traumatic stress. There has been a continuous and overwhelmingly positive response from the participants, as well as from the directors and staff of New Directions to the program.’
“I didn’t like people at all before this. I didn’t talk to people. Now I’m on the bus and I’m talking to people and people are talking to me. After 45 years, I’m coming alive and it’s all because of this. I’ve got a new life.” A.R. (Veteran and Imagination Workshop participant, 2023)
Improvisation in the way it is presented by the Imagination Workshop is not focused on healing the past by directly working through it, but by being able to creatively play in the realm of imagination – being able to imagine a life and identity that has meaning beyond the trauma and beyond being a victim of it.
Christina Linhardt, one of the senior artists with Imagination Workshops says, ‘The imagination Workshop was originally created for psychiatric patients, but then expanded to veterans and at-risk youth. Through the Workshop they no longer need to be their past, their trauma, their PTSD. The Workshop gives them fun, laugh and creates new future.’
Cathy Malchiodi, an expert on expressive arts and trauma treat states: ‘Of all the concepts relevant to meaning making after traumatic events, imagination is possibly the most relevant to expressive arts therapy. The key ingredient of imagination is mental flexibility that allows one to fantasize and create novel perceptions and thoughts and to envision new visions and outcomes – all of which are processes at the core of arts-based approaches. It is particularly significant for the process of meaning making because the ability to image something better than what has transpired is a necessary component of reparation.’
IW is a non-profit theater arts organization committed to using the unique power of the theater to provide life-changing artistic opportunities for the mentally ill, homeless veterans, senior citizens, and ‘at-risk’ young people. For more than 50 years, IW’s programs have given marginalized individuals, who are frequently alienated and overlooked by society, a safe way to express themselves and gain insights that often help make their lives more successful. Through this program, IW enhances the dramatic skills of professional theater artists and expands the creative and emotional horizons of its participants.
I’ve seen a few of their performances and the love and dedication that was put into creating those shows was exuberating. I can see how the IW helps them in many ways. Pride to be on that stage, hard work and enthusiasm is visible in every performance. By doing them, they are getting to be better actors, and I am sure it gives them a lot of confidence and willingness to make something of their lives. They are on a sunny side of life, by doing them.
On June 13, 2026, at 8:00pm at Brentwood School Theater, 100 S. Barrington Place, Los Angeles, CA 90049, imagination workshop had their latest show of ‘Nashville 76’, an original musical written and performed by Veterans of New Directions & The Imagination Workshop. The shows are always given out as a gift of love; therefore, the admission is always FREE.
** East Gate (where Chayote meets Barrington Place, South of Sunset)
(though donations to Imagination Workshop are always welcome)
The New Directions for Veterans mission is to empower men and women who served in the military, and their families, to lead productive and fulfilling lives.
If you are interested in joining them or seeing their performance, please go to: imaginationws@gmail.com