Impact Theatre's Veteran's Project

“With insight and compassion”, bridging the gap between veterans and civilians to get inside the unspoken issues that veterans are facing. Calling all veterans and their families to join this welcoming space dedicated to supporting our warriors coming home.

Fay Van Alstyne Simpson is the Artistic Director of Impact Theatre, co-founded in 1990 as a collective of physical theater artists devising theatre for social change. Fay founded The Veterans Project working with a company of veterans and actors to devise works that speak to the needs of the returning soldier, inspired by her husband’s military service. Jenny Pacanowski joins as the Associate Director. Trained as a combat medic, Jenny Pacanowski was part of providing medical support to convoys in Iraq. She is the Founder and Director of Women Veterans Empowered & Thriving; a reintegration program that utilizes writing and performance to empower the veteran’s experiences and facilitate skills to thrive in daily life.

“Stories hold the essence of human life. We yearn for them to help us understand our own story. I recognized the importance of two things for the health of the body; non-judgmental mind towards self and others, and expressing that which is repressed; finding it and naming it and sharing it.”
- Fay Simpson

“For most of my life I have felt as if I had one foot nailed to the floor and all I could do was go in circles. I am learning to work with my PTSD. I have prayed for my whole life for this simple insight. I have been dead. I am coming to life. I am deeply grateful [to Impact Theatre’s Veterans Project].”
-Everett Cox, Veteran

“Thank you! What amazing, thoughtful, and thought-provoking work. It’s the best interactive, really challenging social justice theater work that I’ve seen...”
-Professor Cecilia Rubino, Audience Member

Host or Publisher Goddard Riverside Community Center