On Saturday, April 12, 2025, Tony award-winning theater producer Julia Dunetz ’19 will come to Cornell University to deliver her TEDxCornell talk, “The Power of Storytelling: A Catalyst for Change.”
It is a full circle moment for Dunetz. In her senior year at Cornell, Dunetz joined the producing team for Sea Wall / A Life starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge. This was her first Broadway producing credit, and she found the opportunity through a national tour of a musical where she was the Associate Producer.
In her time at Cornell, Dunetz studied Human Development, with minors in Business and Theater. Dunetz explained, “My professors in PMA (Performing and Media Arts) were just incredible in fostering my interests … they created opportunities for me based on [commerical theater production], specifically professors like David Feldshuh, creating independent studies for me to focus on theater producing, TA’ing for him for his directing courses.” Dunetz was the first undergraduate producer of the 10-minute play festival. Dunetz also mentioned a Cornell alum, Dana Lerner, who happened to be in theater production. “She ended up being foundational to my career and introduced me to a lot of people that ended up leading to some of my first productions. Cornell and the people were absolutely instrumental in my career and success,” Dunetz said.
Dunetz’s talk, “The Power of Storytelling: A Catalyst for Change,” focuses on how storytelling fosters empathy; stories allow people to see themselves and others. Dunetz expressed that “we’re in a moment where we need to find ways to get to people to have conversations.” She continued, “For example, maybe you have a parent, who isn't understanding of your gender identity, It's really hard to just have a conversation … but maybe you can use story as a tool, maybe there is a series [you can watch] … you can use it as a tool to allow people to see each other. That's what I do in my work.”
5 years ago, Dunetz joined Level Forward as a producer. Level Forward is a mini studio focusing on socially impactful creative work, including theater and film. In her TEDxTalk, Dunetz speaks about How to Dance in Ohio, one of several plays that she produced at the company. Level Forward aims both to produce art and campaign around its impact. Dunetz talked about a social impact platform, “More to Talk About,” a conversation series between the artists and audience, along with other changemakers, all approaching the work from different angles. Dunetz called it “bringing the art into community and bringing community into the art.”
In her work, Dunetz focuses on “stories on the margins” as opposed to dominant stories. Dominant narratives are ones we see most often in mainstream media. Take the nuclear family for example: two parents, one mother and one father, two kids, one boy and one girl. Dunetz wonders, “What about a blended family? Or, a family with queer parents? Or, a single parent? … [Stories on the margins] are the ones that allow us to tap into those two buckets that I talk about in the talk.” The two buckets Dunetz refers to are people seeing themselves in stories, feeling represented and seeing that they’re not alone. The other bucket is seeing others or encountering stories of people you might not have met yet. Dunetz continued, “For someone who has a blended family or a family where they live with their grandparents, they may not get to see those stories about themselves … you may not think about what it's like for someone who is in a different situation than your own if you're in a nuclear family. [These stories] allow you to have empathy for that person and better understand that person.”
All creative projects require direction. As a producer, Dunetz mans the ship of the show. She notes, “My role as a producer varies based on the show, but each Broadway show is its own startup. It has its own entity. It has lawyers, general managers, marketing and press, advertising and a social team.” She explains that a producer is the “CEO of that company” for different shows. Most recently, Dunetz was a producer in a fundraising capacity for Romeo + Juliet starring Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler. She talked about how the show broke records for the average audience age. “Broadway still has a ways to go in terms of catching up to trends and progressing, because in a lot of ways it's still an antiquated industry … Kit and Rachel are amazing and brought in a really youthful audience. It also means that this young audience was seeing Shakespeare, which is not something you normally get, so to be able to marry one of the most classic forms of theater with this youthful, young, fun play and audience is just the coolest thing. And in order for theater to survive and thrive, we do need to invite a younger audience and we need to make them feel welcome and let them know that it is for them,” Dunetz said.
In her TEDxTalk, Dunetz will expand on how we can understand the impact of storytelling. Through her work on Broadway, Dunetz has gained much experience and insight that she intends to share on the social impacts of storytelling on our culture and, finally, our public policies. “The truth is the story we tell ourselves. Everything we exist in is just stories, and that's how we grow and learn. If you're hearing the same story over and over again, you're not going to be able to expand, whether that's about how you see yourself or how you see others,” Dunetz reflected.
See Julia Dunetz speak on Saturday, April 12, 2025, in the Alice Statler Auditorium. Whether you love Broadway or learning about socially impactful stories, you’ll enjoy “The Power of Storytelling: A Catalyst for Change.”
Tickets can be purchased for the TEDxCornell 2025 Conference at https://tedxcornell.com.
Sophia Romanov Imber is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at sromanovimber@cornellsun.com.
