Alison Novelli
Alison Novelli | they/them | is an intimacy professional, mental health coordinator, facilitator, and consultant. They are passionate about decreasing stress and co-creating alchemically resilient artistic spaces. Alison practices cultural humility and takes an intersectional approach to all of their work.
As an intimacy professional, Alison is dedicated to creating dynamic stories of intimacy for stage and screen. They are committed to realizing a show’s creative vision with an emphasis on authenticity, dignity, and compassion.
Alison’s credits include Stephen King’s The Stand (CBS, assisting intimacy coordinator, P Lynn Johnson), Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace (Cannes French Touch Prize Winner), Noah Millman’s Resentment, Cursed/Too Bad by King Princess, and numerous short filmsincluding Pillow Talk, Pair, and Ethnic Slut. For stage, Alison has intimacy directed for Erica Schmidt’s The Disappear at Audible’s Minetta Lane, Josh Rhodes’ Cabaret at Asolo Rep, Dance Nation directed by Tea Alagíc, Three Sisters directed by Gisela Cardeñas, and more! They have extensive experience intimacy directing projects in every and all stages of development at Brooklyn’s Mercury Store.
As a mental health coordinator, Alison is certified through The Association of Mental Health Cooridnators and combines this with their work as a certified Resilience Toolkit Facilitator. Alison specializes in decreasing stress, growing embodied self-awareness, consent, and increasing capacity for ease and challenge. They have led numerous workshops on artist wellbeing at colleges and conferences, and write about this subject extensively on the Blog.
Alison facilitates with curiosity, compassion, and play, drawing on their extensive theater background and professional education. Through a trauma-informed, resilience-oriented approach, Alison works with individuals, companies, and organizations to build sustainable and adaptive strategies, policies, and practices that are responsive to an ever-changing arts landscape.
Currently, Alison is partnered with The Jen Waldman Studio on Consent-Based Practices. They have facilitated and consulted with numerous organizations including Barnard College, The Jen Waldman Studio, Ring of Keys, Actors Equity Foundation, and the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema. Read more about their workshops here.
For more on their artistic work, visit www.alisonnovelli.com
What Sets Cheek to Cheek Apart
Collaboration
We are here to support. Support the performers, director, producers, creative team, crew, and everyone involved in the process so that they can do their best work. We facilitate open communication across departments, provide useful consent-based frameworks, and act as a resource to production.
Dynamic Storytelling
Empowerment
We meet people where they are at. Through ongoing, informed consent and bodily autonomy, we help performers cultivate their own felt sense of agency and safety to allow them to show up fully in their character, serving the story. We provide accessible options, tools for reducing stress, and foster an environment of choice.
We are committed to realizing the show’s creative vision with an emphasis on authenticity, dignity, and compassion. We practice cultural humility and an intersectional approach to crafting scenes of intimacy. This allows us to serve the story and honor the full humanity of the people telling that story.
Advocacy
We help make the working environment a welcome space for all bodies, identities, genders, intersections and orientations. We acknowledge people’s cultural and historical experience through anti-racism practice, emphasizing dignity, neutrally navigating power dynamics, consultancy, and acting as an emotional support during production.
What People Are Saying
“Alison took the scene in my film that I was the most stressed about filming and made it one of the smoothest days on set. It put my mind at ease knowing how much care they were providing for my actors. They also went above and beyond to make sure everyone felt safe and comfortable after the scene was wrapped. In addition to creating a safe space for the actors, Alison centered the artistic vision in the process and handled my writing with great respect and thoughtful stewardship. A wonderful experience all around, and I will never make a film without an intimacy coordinator again!”
— Maggie Talbot-Minkin, Director & Writer
“Alison is the rare kind of collaborator whose contributions help both a project and its artists to evolve. They approach Intimacy as a creative opportunity, in which storytellers are empowered to explore dynamic choices informed by safety and consent. My collaboration with Alison began as a dialogue about staging Intimacy, but then transcended into a collectively shared conversation about care that empowered every artist in my room. My directorical experience became transcendent because Alison’s work is transcendent. If you work with Alison, your work will evolve.”
— é boylan, director, creator, composer
“Alison is a joyful, fun presence in a rehearsal process and a direct communicator. They're great at thinking creatively about their role in creating a brave room in which actors can push themselves while taking care of each others' (and their own) boundaries. Theatre is intimate! Alison can help."
— Skylar Fox, director, writer, & designer
“Alison is intelligent a.f, confident, curious, patient, warm, and fun to learn from. They hold space in a beautiful manner while also encouraging individuals to participate and explore at all levels of comfort. They are the true embodiment of resilience, so I felt safe and excited to learn about this with them as my guide.”
— Jenna P.