Mary C. Parker

She/Her

Mary C. Parker is a performer, applied theater facilitator, and independent international scholar. As a performer, Mary has performed improv comedy in Portland, OR, London, UK, and Pittsburgh, PA teams in 175+ in-person shows including the Improv Festivus (Richmond, VA), Edinburgh Improv Festival (Scotland), Pittsburgh Comedy Festival (Pittsburgh, PA), and 2nd Best Fest (Richmond, VA). Her online improv has reached global audiences with over 6,300 views. In her applied theater work, Mary employs humor to deepen humility and disrupt fragility, one laugh at a time using a praxis of applied improvisation, playback theater, and theatre of the oppressed. As an international scholar, Mary has been on Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and Point Park Conservatory of Performing Arts and has researched and published on identity, comedy, and structural racism. In 2022 she was awarded a Frank-Ratchye Fund For Art @ the Frontier Grant to document and research the history of Black improv. Mary earned an MA in Applied Theatre, is a credentialed International Coach Federation (ICF) Professional Coach, and is soon to be a Certified Humor Professional (CHP) through the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH). More at www.marycparker.com.