Our process consists of several steps, which we are able to scale and adapt to provide customizable programming.

Identifying and Building Community Partnerships

Community partners become Cornerstone’s and your advocates within the community. This stage of engagement involves getting to know the landscape of the community, networking with individuals and organizations, hosting story-gathering events, identifying a community’s main players, resources and systems of operation, and promoting the project at a grassroots level.

Story Circles

A method of collecting raw, first person data. This data is what feeds the playwriting process, but it also contributes to a company’s intelligence about their customers, employees or market. Cornerstone has patented an authentic story gathering method that generates truly honest discussion, allowing the Cornerstone process to go much deeper than normal market research procedures. Through this precisely engineered Story Circle practice Cornerstone uncovers participants’ unaffected feelings about the issues at hand, feedback that can be informative to a marketing team, product development department, and company at large.

Interactive Workshops

Workshops consist of spoken, written and art-based activities that expand thinking while also building community and offering tools to drive social change. Activities are customizable and tailored to everyone, designed to put participants in a safe place for sharing where their ideas are valued and respected.

Original Text

From content derived at Story Circles, Cornerstone professional playwrights create original theater pieces with expertly woven imbedded marketing. These works become an indelible piece of art, exploring and communicating a group’s unique story in a remarkably intimate and communal way. Cornerstone has produced over 100 original plays throughout their history for countless communities across the nation.

Performance Aspect

The performance puts professional actors on stage next to community members, offering audiences of your client community an artistic work that speaks directly to their experiences, provides new perspectives, and motivates them to take action around issues. Because individuals’ own stories and real words are heard, valued, and reflected back, they feel emotionally connected to the performance and issues on stage, offering them an enhanced opportunity to understand and, more importantly, to personalize the information they are learning, leaving them resolutely moved to take action.

Facilitated Dialogue

Cornerstone’s facilitated discussions are an integral part of the process. The audience’s participation in the discussion makes them feel valued by your organization and empowers them to think of themselves as leaders in their own communities, where they will go on to become role models of behavior, educators and advocates motivating change.