Speak and Carry explores the stories we carry, how stories help us transform what we carry, and how collective imagination allows us to envision what we can carry forward together. And how speaking this lightens the load.

Speak and Carry began as a theatrical exploration of grief and mourning through a masculine lens—an experience rarely centered in public conversations about loss, healing, and emotional expression. The project created space to examine the ways men navigate grief, vulnerability, memory, and identity while challenging cultural expectations around how people are allowed to process pain and find connection.

With generous support from the Pop Culture Collaborative, Shawn developed and workshopped the theatrical experience in communities where conversations about grief, resilience, and healing are deeply needed, including jails, prisons, and grief support groups. These experiences revealed a larger truth: storytelling is not simply a way to share personal experiences—it is a powerful tool for connection, understanding, and collective transformation.

The project evolved into an audio adaptation of the theatrical experience (a version of this will be released, on this site, in December 2026), expanding its reach and allowing more people to engage with its stories and conversations. From there, Speak and Carry grew into a broader platform dedicated to exploring the intersection of storytelling, civic imagination, and social possibility, critique, and cultural cartography.

Today, Speak and Carry uses storytelling, collective imagining, and narrative experiences to help people build deeper interpersonal connections while creating opportunities for communities to envision new futures together. Through performances, workshops, conversations, and immersive storytelling experiences, the platform invites people to explore what they have carried, what they are ready to release, and what they might create together.

At its heart, Speak and Carry is built on a simple belief: the stories we carry shape the lives we live—and the stories we share can help shape the world we create.

Because every story carried has the potential to become a bridge between people, a catalyst for healing, and an invitation to imagine what comes next.