Advocacy and the arts: Logan Stacer ’18 empowers artists to create change in their community
As a high schooler, Logan Stacer ’18 had two passions: speech and sports.
He was a track athlete and a member of the school’s debate team. In his senior year,
as he was trying to decide what path to take for college, he received a scholarship
offer for track and an offer for speech and debate.
“My mom was like [choose] whichever one you do better at, at the state tournament,”
Stacer recalls with a smile. “And I got second in state track. And then I won state
forensics. So I was like, well, let's do forensics.”
That decision led him on a journey to K-State, then New York, and finally to Kansas
City, where he founded and currently serves as executive artistic director of Heartland Arts KC, a nonprofit that uses performing arts to teach the public about social issues in
Kansas City.
For Stacer, it was a moment of coming full circle, combining his own skills with a
desire to uplift other creators.
“Heartland was me bringing it all together, bringing it back home and also being able
to work with other artists,” he said.
As a college student, Stacer received a scholarship to join K-State’s speech/forensics
team. He says that speech opened doors for him and inspired him to take school more
seriously and strive to succeed.
“My K-State experience was not the typical K-State experience,” he jokes. “Every weekend,
I was at speech tournaments. And so I think I only went to one basketball game; I
don't think I went to any football games. Speech was very rigorous, academically as
well. The thing we all say is, we know 10 minutes about everything.”
His time at K-State allowed him to hone his skills in performance, writing and public
speaking. He participated in open mic events at K-State and also competed in the university’s
Last Comic Standing in 2018. As a finalist, he got to open for some professional comedians on campus.
“Kansas State just gave me a lot of space to cultivate the skill set,” he said.
He later applied to New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and during his time
there, he said he learned how to blend advocacy with performance, participating in
hip hop theater and sketch comedy, and mixing the arts with historical and political
theory.
Heartland Arts KC uses public policy as source material/inspiration for creative work
— in ways that people might not expect.
“For example, this year Kansas City passed the climate protection and resiliency plan,”
Stacer said. “So we're like, let's take this massive document of public policy, read
it, hear from the people who wrote it, hear from organizations that are partnering
with it, and then turn around and create a show and perform a show that gives our
audience resources of how they can get connected.”
Stacer notes that people often say they want to be activists and that they care about
social issues, but they need to make sure conversation actually leads to policy change.
He encourages the public to read and understand government policy, know who the policy
makers are, and get involved in local government meetings.
“You can affect a lot more change by focusing on your community,” he said.
Through his nonprofit, Stacer is excited to shine a light on Midwest artists, and
he encourages other K-Staters to do what they can to support live performances in
their communities.
"If people just routinely went to shows, the shows will be cheaper, and the quality will be higher. So it really is this self-fulfilling prophecy of: if you go to the shows, you can go to more shows," he said. "There's a lot of [artists] who are trying to build out their resume to go to Chicago, to go to New York. But you don’t have to do that as much, if you're celebrated where you're at. And I feel like we don't do the best job of celebrating local talent. That's what people are looking for in these bigger cities, is just to be acknowledged for their work and to be recognized for the quality of the product they produce."