Performing Ourselves: An Interview with Sophie Kreitzberg
Last month, Sophie Kreitzberg (BC ‘19, BCRW Post Baccalaureate Fellow) and Miriam Neptune (BCRW Senior Associate Director) had a chat about Sophie’s journey to BCRW, from undergraduate project volunteer to student research assistant to integral staff member. Sophie’s recollections walk us through a few of the worlds in BCRW’s matrix of projects. Sophie shared her current project, a work of theater on the non-profit industrial complex where humor is a tool of critique as much as a balm to get through the days. Below is the interview, edited slightly for clarity.
Miriam Neptune: What is your favorite spot at BCRW when you’re in the office?
Sophie Kreitzberg: I’d have to say the student resource room, especially when it’s full of research assistants.
MN: How would you describe the vibe when the students are there?
SK: Recently it’s been pretty quiet. Just people plugging away at work, pretty focused. But sometimes I see research assistants doing their coursework there or just hanging out. As much as possible, we’re trying to make it a place where students feel comfortable.
MN: So speaking of research assistants, I was going through old annual reports and saw that you had been a research assistant a few years ago…When did you first start working at BCRW, and what was it like?
SK: Oh my gosh!
MN: Pre-pandemic, right?
SK: Pre-pandemic, back in 2018. My first project with BCRW was actually before I became a research assistant. I was in Janet Jakobsen’s Theorizing Activisms class. In that class, we were put into groups, based on interest, to work with an activist. My group was paired with Cara Page, so I started working on an early iteration of her Changing Frequencies project, doing research for a medical industrial complex timeline with a couple of other students.
That is what brought me into BCRW, the work with Cara. Then I officially came on the next fall as a research assistant, and I spent most of my time working with the digital archives, quality checking the audio tapes from early Scholar and Feminist conferences.
It was a neat project because I got to listen to them all. It was slow work, but I don’t think I would’ve otherwise had a reason to go back in such depth. Now they’re available online and a few of them are used in the 50th Anniversary Archive Project that we just launched. So super cool to see that go around.
I also got to sit in on some of the conversations that the former Community Archivist, Che Gossett, and other folks from the Barnard archives were having about how to make these tapes accessible and how to deal with talks that BCRW now was not so proud of having hosted.
I learned a lot from that experience and got really interested in the archive for a moment.
MN: It sounds like at that time there were a lot of opportunities for you to shadow other people doing work at BCRW, and not just shadow, but be a part of projects as a staff person, essentially.
SK: Yeah. Other opportunities came up besides my main work, too. I got to be a production assistant on Salacia, Tourmaline’s short film, which is maybe one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life. The energy of the whole shoot was absolutely incredible. Such a way to end my time as an undergrad at Barnard.
MN: That’s really great. I have so many questions. I didn’t realize that you had worked on that film… my kids were also in it!
SK: Oh my gosh! Those were your kids?
MN: Yeah.
SK: So you were there too?
MN: No. I was never on set. Their other parent took them, and I went to the after party once the film was basically done and wrapped. It’s such a beautiful film… So did you and Hope [BCRW Creative Director] work closely together or did you work with the other folks on the production?
SK: I worked with Hope and I worked with Nina Macintosh, the producer. I had no idea what being a PA was at the time. I had never worked in film.
I think my experience working as a PA on this film was pretty unique compared to something like a commercial set. There was a lot of intention in this environment, and an emphasis on making room for the
PAs to ask questions and learn about different aspects of the work.
MN: Did it make you think of doing more film work? It sounds like it reinvigorated your creative work.
SK: It really did. I remember sitting down with the other BCRW PAs and Tourmaline, and having lunch and talking to her about how she got into filmmaking.
She told us about how she was a community organizer for many years, and how she saw herself and so many people burn out from that type of work because of exhaustion and nonprofit co-optation, which made her want to do something that was full of abundance and futurity. And that’s part of what led her into film, wanting to make art as her contribution to movements.
MN: After graduation, where did you go?
SK: After graduating, I worked at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice as an intern and eventually a program associate. I was in that position for about two years and through the beginning of the pandemic. As workplaces figured out how to make things work virtually, Astraea had already had a lot of its staff working remotely outside the U.S, so it was a pretty smooth transition.
That was my first two years postgrad, and a great stepping stone. I got a firsthand look at all that goes into foundation funding, and what the day-to-day work of moving money from point A to point B is when you’re the person going into the grantmaking program, filling out the forms, and preparing the award letters.
MN: But so wait. It overlaps. Because you were an intern there, and then you took on the position. So the two years starts in 2019?
SK: Yes.
MN: You were working at BCRW and working at Astraea?
SK: I actually was. I was a senior and was taking my thesis seminar and a couple of classes, working at Astraea two days a week, and working at BCRW also.
MN: That’s a lot.
SK: It was a lot. Come to think of it. I’m like, “Barnard students are always doing so much!” And it felt really normal. But it was a lot of work to take on my senior spring.
MN: Yeah. That’s a lot. That’s incredible. Many of the post baccs I’ve worked with haven’t really left Barnard yet, but you did. What made you choose to come back?
SK: At a certain point in the last two years, I started thinking about how much I wanted to do creative work, to do work that was a bit more self propelled, to have time to focus more on organizing or just do work that connected me more with my sense of purpose.
I reached out to Eve Kausch [BCRW post bacc 2018-20] and said, “Hey, does BCRW have any projects, or events, or work that I could just help out with? Because I really miss it. I miss the staff and I miss the SJI fellows.”
And Eve said, “I love you, but I’m not going to let you do unpaid work.” Which was very nice of them. The way that it happened, that I was two years out of Barnard and starting this post-bacc, feels actually really ideal.
MN: I’m curious, did you have to talk about a project when you applied for the job?
SK: Yes, I did.
MN: From what I know, it has gone through a little bit of an arc of style and focus. So I’d love to hear the whole story?
SK: Absolutely. Let me think. Working at a queer, feminist, social justice philanthropic institution, I spent a lot of time thinking about the contradiction inherent in that, and what it means to work towards queer and trans liberation within the structure of philanthropy and nonprofit.
Guided by INCITE!’s, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, I was interested in continuing to talk about possibilities for transformative change beyond the traditional nonprofit model, a conversation that BCRW has also been having through its Queer Dreams and Non-Profit Blues conference and video series.
Initially, I was thinking that this could be a convening where scholars, activists, and nonprofit workers could be in a room together to revisit the question of, “What do we do about funding and our movements, and how does funding, and specifically grant funding, impact and drive activist movements and take it out of the hands of communities that it impacts?”
From there, I was also holding a desire more personally — inspired by the many artists who’ve worked at BCRW — to, rather than aim for something like a research paper or conference, make a creative piece about it.
I have a background in musical theater, and writing my own work is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. There has always been something that feels a little comedic about the nonprofit world, about the performance of it all. Even the language that we associate with nonprofits lends itself well… and the workplace and the way that we as workers within those systems are so often performing ourselves.
I think a lot of the inspiration came out of the relationships that I’ve had in former workplaces, where we were always laughing together to get through the frustrating parts of working in the NPIC [non-profit industrial complex]. Humor is an incredibly powerful thing! I thought doing a comedic theater piece was a ridiculous idea at first, and was encouraged to try it by you and by Elizabeth, and Avi, Hope, and Pam.
I’m excited to see where it goes, and I’m excited to really remain focused on the process of it. Rather than trying to push forward a certain product, I want to be thoughtful about how I’m conducting the research aspect of this project, what stories I’m telling, and how I’m sharing this experience with the other people that I’m working with.
MN: That’s great. Your narrative is really fun to listen to!
SK: Thank you!
MN: It makes me all that more excited to see what emerges from your process. Immediately as you’re talking about what workers do to get through, how humor is a coping mechanism, or a way, I guess, even deeper than that, I think it can be a form of resistance…What part of the writing process do you feel like you think you’re thinking about right now? Are you still in a research phase, trying to build background, or what’s happening for you?
SK: This past semester, I’ve been doing background reading on conversations that have already happened about the NPIC. I’ve been watching video materials, some of which were made available by BCRW and friends. I’ve also been reading a lot of plays and taking in live theater for inspiration.
MN: Okay. So you’ve been behind the scenes at many of BCRW’s recent events and coordinating research assistants. You are also doing amazing work on these events. Can you tell us about your favorite talk and what it did for you, and anything else about the behind the scenes part?
SK: Most immediately, what comes to the top of my brain is the mutual aid workshop series with Dean Spade. It’s amazing how Dean has been able to share his knowledge about working in mutual aid groups on such a large scale.
Throughout the workshops, I’ve seen how you can cultivate a very… I don’t know if intimate is the right word. But a very personalized conversation and skill sharing workshop online to hundreds of people at a time.
People show up, often watching together with their mutual aid groups and writing, “Hey, we’re here from XYZ mutual aid in California!” It’s been great to see people return workshop after workshop and recognize each other.
A lot of what I do behind the scenes during our online events is help people out in the chat, if people have questions or need me to drop in links to things that Dean’s referenced. I’ll support Dean to highlight specific questions that people have that he can answer in the Q&A. Hope runs the tech, and I coordinate with the ASL interpreters and captioner, and make sure that everyone has what they need during the workshop. It’s great to be there behind the scenes.
MN: What are you looking forward to? Because hopefully, you will be here with us another year. What excites you right now, moving forward?
SK: What I’m thinking about right now is just all that we’ve learned about how we can make our events accessible to people who couldn’t necessarily come to an event at Barnard on campus. So, that’s been a really hopeful thing. And I am hopeful for a time where it is safe to do in-person events in the future. I’m also excited about our Living in Madness un-conference coming up this spring!
MN: All so exciting. Finally, what are you currently reading?
SK: I just started reading a play called Is God Is by Aleshea Harris, published by 3 Hole Press.