“The Power of Poetic Language: Dante and the Modern Theater of Education”

Lecture by Diane Luby Lane

Diane Luby Lane is the founder and executive director of Get Lit – Words Ignite, a California-based arts education nonprofit that has transformed the landscape of teen literacy by empowering new generations in literature, self-expression and performing arts. She is also the founder of the Get Lit Players, an award-winning classic teen poetry troupe and the most watched poets on the internet with over 300 million views. The Get Lit Players tour throughout the country, have appeared at the White House three times, collaborated with the United Nations, were featured with John Legend at The Hollywood Bowl and perform each year for over 50,000 of their peers, igniting schools and communities with art and social consciousness. Each year Lane produces the Classic Slam, the largest youth classic poetry festival in the nation. Lane’s Lit Kit, a standards based, in- school curriculum, has been adopted by schools throughout the U.S. and internationally. She is an actress with numerous commercial, TV and film credits and the author of the award-winning Get Lit Rising, published by Simon & Schuster and Words of Women, published by Samuel French. She is also the co-writer and co-producer of DANTE, an original adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, which stars Get Lit Poets. She was the playwright and star of the critically acclaimed one-woman show Deep Sea Diving which she toured with the iconic Chicano poet and author Jimmy Santiago Baca. Lane is a TedX speaker, a graduate of the Annenberg Foundation’s Alchemy + Leadership Program, a Southern California Leadership Network Fellow and served on L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Poet Laureate Committee. She is a recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Volunteer Service Award. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.