Centering Voice and Care with LaGuardia Community College’s Nursing Program and LPAC

This summer, Pink Fang collaborated with LaGuardia Community College’s (CUNY) Nursing Program and La Guardia Performing Arts Center to lead a two-part workshop series for nursing students. Facilitated by Artistic Director of Engagement Sara Zatz and Teaching Artist C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek the sessions invited students in their capstone course to reflect on identity, leadership, and their transition into the nursing profession. Drawing from Pink Fang’s signature documentary and interview-based theater methodologies, and C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek’s extensive background in arts-in-health work, students explored storytelling as a tool for self-reflection, intercultural communication, community-building, and personal narrative—key skills for future healthcare practitioners.

This pilot program represents a continuation and expansion of our long-time partnership with LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, where we previously developed and presented Inside Out…stories from the disability community, Beyond Sacred: Voices of Muslim Identity, and a Queens Pride Day staged reading based on and adapted from the interviews in LaGuardia/Wagner’s LGBTQ archives.

For nearly all of the participating students, this was their first ever theater workshop, and a rare opportunity to step outside the academic and clinical rigor of the intensive nursing program to get to know their classmates and to express both the joys and fears of their journey in the program to date.

In their reflections, students shared “It was a great experience. I felt safe and supportive, and this workshop helped me to step out of my comfort zone” and “The workshop helped me to stay focused, be calm, and be supportive of my classmates.”

We are honored to support the next generation of health care professionals through storytelling and community-building. Their stories remind us of the transformative power of care—and of being truly seen.