JOHANNA MIDDLETON is an LA-based artist and arts educator with a passion for telling black/woman stories and creating spaces for women and people of color to share their own stories.
She is the founder of Girlie Stories, which provides women and girls a platform to empower themselves and each other through personal storytelling. Through Girlie Stories, Johanna leads monthly gatherings, facilitates workshops, and produces storytelling events around Los Angeles.
As an actress and performer, she has appeared on stage, on the web, and in film/television. Favorite credits include Netflix's Dear White People and a web series she co-wrote and co-created, Bwitches, an intersectional feminist comedy about two women who happen to be witches. Johanna has performed her original pieces as a storyteller at venues around Los Angeles including iO West, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Last Bookstore, The Echo, and the Gal Palace. She has also worked with The Story Pirates as an actress, performing original stories written by elementary school students at schools around Los Angeles. She recently debuted her first solo theatre piece, Timeline:27, a participatory storytelling show, at the Santa Monica Playhouse.
As an arts educator, she has worked with students of all ages in Chicago and Los Angeles. She was a founding member of the participatory theatre collective, For Youth Inquiry, where she built skills as a teaching artist and facilitator while touring Chicago middle schools and high schools. In Los Angeles, Johanna serves as the program manager and arts coach for Bluepalm, a professional development arts-integration program, teaching Montebello Unified School District elementary school teachers how to use the performing arts in their language arts lesson-plans.
Johanna holds a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University.
She is the founder of Girlie Stories, which provides women and girls a platform to empower themselves and each other through personal storytelling. Through Girlie Stories, Johanna leads monthly gatherings, facilitates workshops, and produces storytelling events around Los Angeles.
As an actress and performer, she has appeared on stage, on the web, and in film/television. Favorite credits include Netflix's Dear White People and a web series she co-wrote and co-created, Bwitches, an intersectional feminist comedy about two women who happen to be witches. Johanna has performed her original pieces as a storyteller at venues around Los Angeles including iO West, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Last Bookstore, The Echo, and the Gal Palace. She has also worked with The Story Pirates as an actress, performing original stories written by elementary school students at schools around Los Angeles. She recently debuted her first solo theatre piece, Timeline:27, a participatory storytelling show, at the Santa Monica Playhouse.
As an arts educator, she has worked with students of all ages in Chicago and Los Angeles. She was a founding member of the participatory theatre collective, For Youth Inquiry, where she built skills as a teaching artist and facilitator while touring Chicago middle schools and high schools. In Los Angeles, Johanna serves as the program manager and arts coach for Bluepalm, a professional development arts-integration program, teaching Montebello Unified School District elementary school teachers how to use the performing arts in their language arts lesson-plans.
Johanna holds a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University.
