Stephen Brown-Fried

Stephen Brown-Fried is the executive dean at The New School College of Performing Arts. A theatre director based in New York City, his work has been seen at The Public Theater, the National Asian American Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop’s 4th Street Theater, Sundance Theatre Lab, Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, Trinity Shakespeare, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Illinois Shakespeare and at The Shakespeare Theatre Company. Brown-Fried holds a B.A. in History and Drama from Stanford University and an M.F.A. in Directing from the Yale School of Drama.

In a scene from "Hadestown," actors Eva Noblezada and Reeve Carney demonstrate the capacity to hold another’s reality without collapsing it into their own. (Walter McBride/Getty Images)

The performing arts can help solve America’s empathy crisis

Stephen Brown-Fried, Pablo Helguera