Play Story Fest @ Remake Learning Days
A pilot of a ½ day salon of facilitated conversations around play, culture and community.
The pilot of Play Story Fest took place the Afternoon of May,11 at the MuseumLab at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh during the 2026 Remake Learning Days.
The Fest was a ½ day starting around 12:30pm and going until 5:00pm. From around 1-4:30, there were three conversation topics that were discussed. There were breaks for open reflection, and throughout the Fest had a hands-on activity creating art together.
Each topic had a facilitator to guide the conversation. One was a focus on play in our lives. Another was on psychology and sociology perspectives on pop culture, media and games. The third was on manifesting positive social impact through our lives.
Drew Davidson is a professor, producer and player of interactive media. His background spans academic, industry and professional worlds and he is interested in stories and transformational experiences across texts, comics, games and other media. Currently, he’s studying the value of play in our lives, supported by major industry and non-profit organizations, and the shared stories inspired him to found Play Story Press, an open community publishing consortium.
Amelia Herbst, PsyD is a clinical psychologist, author, and public speaker who thrives in the geek and gaming community. She believes our interests are important to our identity and encourages the use of gaming in therapy. Since starting therapeutic work in 2012 she has explored innovative techniques like using Dungeons and Dragons and other games to address social anxiety, and has helped designers integrate mental health and psychological themes into games.
After growing up poor and working for decades in shelters and halfway houses, non-profit leader Dana Gold created a board game to help people understand how families get ensnared in poverty and how difficult the struggle is to overcome structured inequity. The game, Broke, creates empathy for people who are poor by giving players the opportunity to experience the stress and frustration of making high stakes decisions with competing priorities and not enough income.