Marielle Buxbaum is a recipient of the 2025 Project Support Ecuador Award for her exploration of youth social concerns in Theatre for Youth Futures: Engaging Ecuadorian Urban Teens. Marielle’s playwriting-for-social-change program looks to address difficult experiences of youth from Quimera, including bullying, suicide, intra-family violence and drug abuse through plays written and performed by participating teens. Her theatre program engages with the therapeutic value of working with teens’ creative imaginations to process their own stories and work towards community change.

Support from the Lois Roth Foundation will fund the purchase of costumes and props for the theatre project, which can be used for future groups and productions. Purchased items, kept by the high school arts teachers, would allow those teachers freedom to continue the project for years to come.

Marielle plans to work with local artists to ensure that the new playwriting program lives on after her return to the U.S., and also hopes to publish her research, providing insights into how various local art forms foster youth storytelling when integrated into theatrical writing.