A leader in Richmond’s social justice community for nearly two decades, Trey Hartt’s work with the Conciliation Project, Art180, Performing Statistics
and now The Hive has been focused on racial equity and healing for marginalized youth.

The son of an Air Force colonel, his entire childhood up until college saw him move every two years – mostly in the Deep South. “Entering a new community every few years has shaped my worldview today, for better and for worse.” As a theatre major at Virginia Commonwealth University, Hartt’s biggest ‘a-ha’ moment was meeting Professor Tawnya Pettiford-Wates.

“Dr. T. moved to Richmond the same year I did, and we [re-]started this company, The Conciliation Project,” he recounts. Still in operation, the Project promotes, through dramatic stage productions, an open dialogue about racism and oppression in America. “I was a wayward boy trying to find his way in the
world of theatre. That’s when I started to get involved in what I call social justice theatre. It just transformed my perspective on the world.”

As executive assistant to the executive director at Virginians For The Arts, Hartt was responsible for a statewide campaign called Arts Builds Communities, which publicized different organizations across Virginia which were catalysts in their cities. He also started volunteering for Alternate
ROOTS, a venerable organization that supports artists. From there, he began working as development and program coordinator for the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, a nonprofit that works with schools, businesses, and communities to address prejudices, in all forms. “That’s when I
learned to implement projects,” he says.

At Art 180, with Mark Strandquist and his longtime collaborator Gina Lyles, he co-directed Performing Statistics, a cultural organizing project that works with incarcerated youth to imagine what a world without prison would look like. Just recently, he spun it off into The Hive, which models a community-based alternative to incarceration. The Hive is currently in the early stages of planning for a multi-acre facility in Richmond. Performing Statistics is now based in Philadelphia, so his full attention is on The Hive, which he calls an “extension of himself” and “the culmination of so much of what I’ve done with my life.”

Hartt has difficulty separating his professional and volunteer time. “Work is work,” he says. “My volunteer work is more on the art side.” During the
pandemic, many smaller arts organizations were struggling to get funding so he “helped to found the Southern Community Cultural Alliance, a network
of small to mid-sized arts organizations that were anchors in their community but didn’t have the resources to pull in national funding.”

Hartt has been with his husband, Jon Davidow, for 15 years (they have two “infamous cats,” Fartbox and Gail). The activist says that his goal is “to
live a purpose-driven life. I’m invested in making our community better by speaking the truth about racial justice in the city and being unafraid of taking
bold innovative steps to change … not just doing the same things the same way we’ve been doing them.”

Correction: We updated that he was a co-director, not co-founder of Performing Statistics.