Community Conversations
The arts move us. Let’s talk about how.
Community Conversations explores the connection between the performing arts and the way we think, feel and connect with others.
Why can a familiar song calm us, bring back a memory, or make us feel connected to the people around us?
Community Conversations is a new TPAC series exploring questions like these. Using the music and stories on our stages as a starting point, each event brings together artists, researchers or health professionals and community voices for approachable conversations.
Throughout the season, we’ll explore subjects that touch everyday life including stress, mental health, empathy, resilience, social connection and healthy aging. Some conversations will offer simple practices participants can use in their own lives, while others will invite us to reconsider a familiar story or see an experience from a new perspective.
Community Conversations creates a welcoming place to discover how the arts can support our individual and collective well-being.
Join the Conversation
Community Conversation: Music as Medicine
TPAC welcomes Fred Johnson to our first Community Conversation for this season. Join us to discover how music can be a powerful tool for reducing stress, improving focus, and supporting emotional well-being. In this interactive session, you'll learn simple breathing, rhythm, and sound techniques that help calm the mind, restore balance, and build resilience. Walk away with practical tools you can use every day to hit the "reset button" on stress and find greater peace through the healing power of music.
Fred Johnson is an internationally recognized vocalist, storyteller, and arts-in-health facilitator dedicated to the journey of personal and collective healing. He has toured and recorded worldwide with jazz and R&B legends such as Miles Davis, Chick Corea, and B.B. King. Renowned for his work in community empowerment, interfaith reconciliation, and health-based arts initiatives, Fred has spent over forty years using music and narrative as tools for transformation. He currently serves as the Performing Artist in Residence for the National Academy of Sciences and as the Artist in Residence, Community Engagement Specialist, and Arts and Health Coordinator at the Straz Center in Tampa.
Welcome to Community Conversations, a groundbreaking new series at TPAC designed to bridge the gap between the performing arts and meaningful health literacy. This season, we are stepping beyond the stage to explore cognitive wellness, mental fitness, and social health.
A free box lunch will be served to all registrants.
Community Conversation: Nashville Repertory Theatre's John Proctor Is the Villain
What happens when we question the stories we've always been told? In the biting dramatic comedy, John Proctor Is the Villain, a high school English class reexamines The Crucible and sparks a reckoning. As teenage girls debate John Proctor’s morality, their conversations expose uncomfortable truths about consent, credibility, and the stories society chooses to protect.
Join us for a lunchtime Community Conversation where we'll explore themes of consent, healthy relationships, self-advocacy, and mental well-being.
Welcome to Community Conversations, a groundbreaking new series at TPAC designed to bridge the gap between the performing arts and meaningful health literacy. This season, we are stepping beyond the stage to explore cognitive wellness, mental fitness, and social health.
This is a TPAC InsideOut event and is not a full performance. Presenting guest lineups are subject to change.
A free box lunch will be served to all registrants.
More Conversations Coming Soon
Community Conversations will continue throughout the 2026-27 season with additional programs exploring the connections between arts, health, community, and lifelong well-being.
Check back for upcoming events and speaker announcements.